“I have always thought myself, though I do not
know why, that the girl married and had several charming
children, whom she brought up with the austere strictness
and in the serious piety of former days!”
Abbe Marignan’s martial name suited him well.
He was a tall, thin priest, fanatic, excitable, yet
upright. All his beliefs were fixed, never varying.
He believed sincerely that he knew his God, understood
His plans, desires and intentions.
When he walked with long strides along the garden
walk of his little country parsonage, he would sometimes
ask himself the question: “Why has God
done this?” And he would dwell on this continually,
putting himself in the place of God, and he almost
invariably found an answer. He would never have
cried out in an outburst of pious humility: “Thy
ways, O Lord, are past finding out.”
He said to himself: “I am the servant of
God; it is right for me to know the reason of His
deeds, or to guess it if I do not know it.”
Everything in nature seemed to him to have been created
in accordance with an admirable and absolute logic.
The “whys” and “becauses” always
balanced. Dawn was given to make our awakening
pleasant, the days to ripen the harvest, the rains
to moisten it, the evenings for preparation for slumber,
and the dark nights for sleep.
The four seasons corresponded perfectly to the needs
of agriculture, and no suspicion had ever come to
the priest of the fact that nature has no intentions;
that, on the contrary, everything which exists must
conform to the hard demands of seasons, climates and
matter.
But he hated woman—hated her unconsciously,
and despised her by instinct. He often repeated
the words of Christ: “Woman, what have I
to do with thee?” and he would add: “It
seems as though God, Himself, were dissatisfied with
this work of His.” She was the tempter who
led the first man astray, and who since then had ever
been busy with her work of damnation, the feeble creature,
dangerous and mysteriously affecting one. And
even more than their sinful bodies, he hated their
loving hearts.
He had often felt their tenderness directed toward
himself, and though he knew that he was invulnerable,
he grew angry at this need of love that is always
vibrating in them.
According to his belief, God had created woman for
the sole purpose of tempting and testing man.
One must not approach her without defensive precautions
and fear of possible snares. She was, indeed,
just like a snare, with her lips open and her arms
stretched out to man.
He had no indulgence except for nuns, whom their vows
had rendered inoffensive; but he was stern with them,
nevertheless, because he felt that at the bottom of
their fettered and humble hearts the everlasting tenderness
was burning brightly—that tenderness which
was shown even to him, a priest.
