Part 39 (2/2)
”No; these newsmongers have no effect on me,” Durtal a.s.sured himself.
”But does this one do any better? Do you believe in the utility of life, in the necessity of this endless chain, this towage of sufferings, to be prolonged for the most part after death? True goodness would have consisted in inventing nothing, creating nothing, in leaving all as it was, in nothingness, in peace.”
The attack turned round on itself, and after apparent variations, returned always to the same starting point.
Durtal lowered his head, for this argument dismasted him; all the replies which could be imagined were remarkably weak, and the least feeble, that which consists in denying to ourselves the right to judge because we only see the details of the divine plan, because we can possess no general view of it cannot avail against that terrible phrase of Schopenhauer: ”If G.o.d made the world I would not be that G.o.d, for the misery of the world would break my heart!”
”There is no haggling in the matter,” he said to himself. ”I can quite understand that sorrow is the true disinfectant of souls, yet I am obliged to ask myself why the Creator has not invented a less atrocious way of purifying us?
”Ah! when I think of the sufferings shut up in madhouses, and hospital wards, I am revolted, and inclined to doubt everything.
”If, again, grief were an antiseptic for future misdeeds or a detersive for past faults, one might again understand, but now it falls indifferently on the bad and on the good; it is blind. The best proof is the Virgin who was without spot, and who had not like her Son to expiate for us. She consequently ought not to be punished; yet she too underwent at the foot of Calvary the punishment exacted by this horrible law.
”Good; but then,” replied Durtal, after a silence of reflection, ”if the innocent Virgin has given us an example, by what right do we who are culpable dare to complain?
”No; we must therefore resolve to dwell in darkness, to live surrounded by enigmas. Money, love, nothing is clear; chance if it exist is as mysterious as Providence, and indeed still more so; it is inexplicable.
G.o.d is at least an origin of the unknown, a key.
”An origin which is itself another secret, a key which opens nothing!
”Ah! it is irritating,” he said to himself, ”to be thus hara.s.sed in every sense. Enough of it; besides these are questions which a theologian is alone able to discuss; I am unarmed, the game is not equal; I will not answer any more.”
And he could not but hear a vague laughter which arose in him.
He quitted the garden, and directed his steps towards the chapel, but the fear of being seized again by the madness of blasphemy turned him away from it. Knowing not whither to go, he regained his cell, saying to himself, that he ought not to wrangle thus; yes, but how could he help hearing the cavils which rose he knew not whence? He almost shouted aloud: ”Be silent, let the other speak!”
When he was in his chamber he desired to pray, and fell on his knees at his bedside.
This was abominable; for memories of Florence recurred to him. He rose, but the old aberrations returned.
He thought of that creature, her strange tastes, her mania for biting his ears, for drinking toilet scents in little gla.s.ses, for nibbling bread and b.u.t.ter with caviare, and dates. She was so wild, and so strange; a fool no doubt, but obscure.
”And if she were in this room, before you, what would you do?”
He stammered to himself: ”I would try not to yield.”
”You lie; admit then that you would send your conversion, the monastery, all, to the devil.”
He grew pale at the thought; the possibility of his cowardice was a punishment. To have communicated, when one was no more certain of the future, no more certain of oneself, was almost a sacrilege, he thought.
And he became angry. Up till now he had kept right, but the vision of Florence subdued him. He threw himself, in desperation, on a chair, no longer knowing what would become of him, gathering what of courage remained to him to descend to the church, where the Office was beginning.
He dragged himself there, and held himself down, a.s.sailed by filthy temptations, disgusted with himself, feeling his will yielding, wounded in every part.
And when he was in the court he remained overwhelmed, asking himself where he could take shelter. Every place had become hostile to him; in his cell were carnal memories, outside were temptations against Faith, ”or rather,” he cried, ”I carry these with me always. My G.o.d, my G.o.d! I was yesterday so tranquil.”
He strolled by chance into an alley, when a new phenomenon arose.
He had had, up to this hour, in the sky within him, a rain of scruples, a tempest of doubts, a thunderstroke of l.u.s.t; now was silence and death.
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