第51章

Therese, with her hands still meekly folded about her waist, had mastered the feelings of anger so unbecoming to a person whose sins had been absolved only about three hours before, and asked me with an insinuating softness whether she wasn't an honest girl enough to look after any old lady belonging to a world which after all was sinful.She reminded me that she had kept house ever since she was "so high" for her uncle the priest: a man well-known for his saintliness in a large district extending even beyond Pampeluna.

The character of a house depended upon the person who ruled it.

She didn't know what impenitent wretches had been breathing within these walls in the time of that godless and wicked man who had planted every seed of perdition in "our Rita's" ill-disposed heart.

But he was dead and she, Therese, knew for certain that wickedness perished utterly, because of God's anger (la colere du bon Dieu).

She would have no hesitation in receiving a bishop, if need be, since "our, Rita," with her poor, wretched, unbelieving heart, had nothing more to do with the house.

All this came out of her like an unctuous trickle of some acrid oil.The low, voluble delivery was enough by itself to compel my attention.

"You think you know your sister's heart," I asked.

She made small eyes at me to discover if I was angry.She seemed to have an invincible faith in the virtuous dispositions of young men.And as I had spoken in measured tones and hadn't got red in the face she let herself go.

"Black, my dear young Monsieur.Black.I always knew it.Uncle, poor saintly man, was too holy to take notice of anything.He was too busy with his thoughts to listen to anything I had to say to him.For instance as to her shamelessness.She was always ready to run half naked about the hills...""Yes.After your goats.All day long.Why didn't you mend her frocks?""Oh, you know about the goats.My dear young Monsieur, I could never tell when she would fling over her pretended sweetness and put her tongue out at me.Did she tell you about a boy, the son of pious and rich parents, whom she tried to lead astray into the wildness of thoughts like her own, till the poor dear child drove her off because she outraged his modesty? I saw him often with his parents at Sunday mass.The grace of God preserved him and made him quite a gentleman in Paris.Perhaps it will touch Rita's heart, too, some day.But she was awful then.When I wouldn't listen to her complaints she would say: 'All right, sister, Iwould just as soon go clothed in rain and wind.' And such a bag of bones, too, like the picture of a devil's imp.Ah, my dear young Monsieur, you don't know how wicked her heart is.You aren't bad enough for that yourself.I don't believe you are evil at all in your innocent little heart.I never heard you jeer at holy things.

You are only thoughtless.For instance, I have never seen you make the sign of the cross in the morning.Why don't you make a practice of crossing yourself directly you open your eyes.It's a very good thing.It keeps Satan off for the day."She proffered that advice in a most matter-of-fact tone as if it were a precaution against a cold, compressed her lips, then returning to her fixed idea, "But the house is mine," she insisted very quietly with an accent which made me feel that Satan himself would never manage to tear it out of her hands.

"And so I told the great lady in grey.I told her that my sister had given it to me and that surely God would not let her take it away again.""You told that grey-headed lady, an utter stranger! You are getting more crazy every day.You have neither good sense nor good feeling, Mademoiselle Therese, let me tell you.Do you talk about your sister to the butcher and the greengrocer, too? A downright savage would have more restraint.What's your object? What do you expect from it? What pleasure do you get from it? Do you think you please God by abusing your sister? What do you think you are?""A poor lone girl amongst a lot of wicked people.Do you think Iwanted to go forth amongst those abominations? it's that poor sinful Rita that wouldn't let me be where I was, serving a holy man, next door to a church, and sure of my share of Paradise.Isimply obeyed my uncle.It's he who told me to go forth and attempt to save her soul, bring her back to us, to a virtuous life.

But what would be the good of that? She is given over to worldly, carnal thoughts.Of course we are a good family and my uncle is a great man in the country, but where is the reputable farmer or God-fearing man of that kind that would dare to bring such a girl into his house to his mother and sisters.No, let her give her ill-gotten wealth up to the deserving and devote the rest of her life to repentance."She uttered these righteous reflections and presented this programme for the salvation of her sister's soul in a reasonable convinced tone which was enough to give goose flesh to one all over.

"Mademoiselle Therese," I said, "you are nothing less than a monster."She received that true expression of my opinion as though I had given her a sweet of a particularly delicious kind.She liked to be abused.It pleased her to be called names.I did let her have that satisfaction to her heart's content.At last I stopped because I could do no more, unless I got out of bed to beat her.Ihave a vague notion that she would have liked that, too, but Ididn't try.After I had stopped she waited a little before she raised her downcast eyes.

"You are a dear, ignorant, flighty young gentleman," she said.

"Nobody can tell what a cross my sister is to me except the good priest in the church where I go every day.""And the mysterious lady in grey," I suggested sarcastically.