Father Beaubien had not slept all night. Marius had come to him after dark and he had given the boy supper in his presbytery and a bed in his spare room. They had talked together for several hours. Marius was still asleep and he would have sanctuary for the rest of the day, then he would leave.
In the early morning while it was still dark Father Beaubien had left his bed, dressed and entered the church to pray. He had prayed for the soul of Athanase Tallard and he had prayed for Marius. The boy was too bitter, too unforgiving; if he continued to develop this bitter cynicism the priest did not know what would become of him. Finally Father Beaubien had prayed for himself, asking God to give him grace and wisdom to protect his parish.
Shortly after ten he presented himself at the door of the Tallard house and was shown into the library. In a few minutes Athanase joined him there. Without preliminaries this time the priest said, “I’ve been talking to your son again, Mr. Tallard.”
“Marius? Where?”
“That’s unimportant. He is well, so far as his health is concerned. But he doesn’t want to see you now, and I don’t think he should. Later, perhaps, I hope he will see things differently.”
“Is he still in the village?”
The priest looked about the room and Athanase offered him a chair. “I didn’t come here to speak of Marius, Mr. Tallard. I came to speak of you.”
Athanase knocked the dead ashes from his pipe. “Well?”
“I’ve been talking to Tremblay. And some of the other farmers whose land you propose to take away.”
“Well?”
“You can’t do this to Saint-Marc, Mr. Tallard. You know that as well as I do.”
“What can’t I do?”
The priest made a gesture of impatience but immediately his hand returned to the lap of his soutane. Spreading his legs under the black cloth he leaned forward in his chair. “I know all about it,” he said. “The details make no difference. You’re trying to build a factory here.”
“Lawyer’s arguments are useless with me. Are you, or are you not, planning to buy the Tremblay land for a factory?”
“And if I am?”
“I will tell Tremblay not to sell. I will tell every farmer you have already talked to not to sell.”
Athanase flushed and rose from his chair. A sharp wind pushed in the curtains at the window, ruffling the papers on the desk. As he closed the window Athanase saw that a sudden storm had arisen. A black thunder cloud was rolling across the sky, its shadow rushing like an eclipse over the land and swallowing up the sunshine on the river. A splatter of rain struck the window, there was a sharp flash, followed a second later by the roar of thunder. The room was dark now and the books brooded on their shelves. Athanase returned to his chair. The flush had left his face.
“You exceed your authority, Father. What am I to think of these visits you make to me? You have no cause to hate me.”
“Hate you? I prayed for you last night. Always, I have done the best in my power to understand you. You won’t let me.”
The storm roared closer and the wind for a moment reached hurricane force. In a moment it had obliterated the quietness of the day. It screamed over the plain and bent the crops. It lashed cattle in the field and tore branches from trees. Grey driving rain washed the windows.
“Father Beaubien,” Athanase said, “no matter what you may think, we’re living in the twentieth century. A factory here is inevitable. Either we French develop our own resources or the English will do it for us. The population of this parish is larger than the farms will support. Unless our people are to be forced over the border into the United States, work must be provided for them here.”
“The war is also a part of the twentieth century.” Thunder roared and the priest had to stop until the sound died away. “Is that also good?”
The storm was now directly overhead and Athanase’s answer was drowned in the next thunder-clap. Rain struck the windows a solid blow. Then for a moment the air seemed breathless, as though they were in the hollow core of the storm.
“Let me tell you something,” Father Beaubien said. “In the place where I was first curate no one owned anything but the English bosses. There were factories there, but the people owned nothing. They were out of work a quarter of a year around. Good people became miserable and then they became cheap. They forgot about God. Some of them even tried to leave the Church. There were many illegitimate children because of the poverty and wretched examples the people had to see.” He looked straight at Athanase. “And all the time simple Catholics who served God as they should were never rewarded. They saw English managers throwing money about while prices rose and they grew poorer. They blamed the priest for not being able to do more for them.” His voice rose. “Always that’s the story! You accuse me of disliking the English. As a people I have nothing against them. But they are not Catholics and they do our people harm. They use us for cheap labour and they throw us aside when they’re finished. I won’t let you do that here, Mr. Tallard. I won’t let a man like you spoil this parish. And I don’t think the bishop will either. Marius has told me things about you. Some of them I knew anyway, some I had not dreamed possible. Now I tell you in plain language. You are a good Catholic or you are not. You cannot defy the Church and God’s own priest and feel no effects. If it comes to a fight between me and a man like yourself…”
The storm was rolling its way down the river valley but the rain continued to wash the windows. Imperceptibly the light was growing in the room. Athanase kept his eyes on the priest, no irony in them, but defiant with anger.
“Just what do you imagine you can do to stop this development?”
Father Beaubien’s eyes had never left Athanase’s face. “Do you think the people here will follow your lead when they know what sort of man you are? When they know you are a heretic?” Suddenly his words snapped at Athanase’s brain. “Do you think they’ve so easily forgotten your first wife?”
Athanase stared at him. For a moment his lips hung open, then closed.
“She was a saintly woman. She suffered unspeakably because of you, because of your sins and wicked thoughts and your sneers at religion.”
A deep flush spread over Athanase’s face, pushing into his white hair. “Did Marius…?”
“You remember when your first wife lay dying?” The priest’s relentless voice went on.
The flush faded from Athanase’s cheeks as quickly as it had come. His hands were shaking, whether in anger or in fear it was impossible to say. He got to his feet. “This is enough,” he said in a choked voice.
Father Beaubien also rose, still holding his eyes.
“Do you hear me? This is enough. I ask you to leave.”
For a long moment the priest stood and watched him. Then he said, quietly and almost sadly, “Mr. Tallard…please come back.”
When Athanase made no movement and gave no sign that he understood the import of the words, the priest turned and walked out of the room. When he had gone Athanase dropped limply into a chair, closed his eyes and let his arms hang loosely. Until this moment he had always felt utterly confident in his own brain. Because of it, he had been convinced of his superiority to the priest. And then Father Beaubien had reached out and touched the most secret and private memory of his life. With that touch, his strength was gone.
Inexorably his thoughts returned to the priest’s final words. He felt his mind floundering to escape his childhood training, the sense of guilt aroused in him. He felt now that if Father Beaubien had remained a minute longer he would have collapsed before him. How explain to an ascetic what had happened the night Marie-Adèle died? How explain to anyone? How tell even himself that there is any logic in human life after such a night?
Her little nun’s face lay on the pillows as white as the linen, pinched in against the upper jaw with two hectic red spots on the cheekbones. He stood there gripping the bedrail and behind him Marius was on his knees, sobbing and praying alternately. On the other side of the bed were Marie-Adèle’s mother, and her sister, who was in the Ursuline Order. The confessor was there, the doctor was standing near the door, holy water and flowers stood with candles on the table. The priest had administered the last rites. He saw her girl’s figure frail under the sheets and her eyes appearing to blaze out of her head, yet obviously blind, seeing nothing. He stood at the bedrail remembering the futility of their life together, the pity of it, and then the whole fragile aspect of human existence rose before his eyes and dissolved as his mind was dissolving, and he thought he could smell death. Then he could stand it no longer. He groped like a blind man to the door, and the doctor took his arm and led him out. “It’s all over now,” he heard the doctor say. Then he left, went down the corridor alone, out of the hospital into the street.
As he walked the streets of Montreal that night he did not feel the cold, even though it was fifteen below zero and trees were cracking in the frost. He walked for hours. The lobe of his left ear froze and he did not notice it. Finally he remembered Kathleen and went to find her. She came away with him and they walked together back to the hospital.
He had engaged two extra rooms in the hospital on the same floor with Marie-Adèle, one for himself, the other for Marius. Now, with Kathleen beside him, he entered the room where Marius was sleeping. The boy lay utterly still. He turned and went out, closing the door softly behind him. Then he entered his own room and Kathleen sat down on the bed beside him. He looked at her and she held his eyes, and with an understanding as simple as a child she gave herself to him that night. He cried himself to sleep in her arms and she lay awake holding him. When he woke the next morning he was alone in the room, the sun was coming up over the roofs of the city for another day, he saw it glittering on the snow crystals, and as he looked out the window he knew that he could now go on living. In the night just passed he had swum upward out of death. And he thought: Marie-Adèle never lived for life, but in order to die, in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. And he thought: God rest her soul there, for her purpose is now fulfilled and her purpose never had anything to do with me anyway. She was at peace now, or she was nothing. But he was alive and had to go on living. And that morning he felt so grateful to Kathleen that he knew he would always be her debtor for what she had done.
He breathed heavily. His breath came in quick gasps as he looked at the bookshelves beside him. So Marius had known! So this was the thing that had lain between them all these years! And now Father Beaubien knew also.
Athanase forced himself to his feet. That night had made a profound difference in his life, more than he had ever been willing to admit even to himself. He had done something which almost any man, regardless of his religion, would consider heinous. But in his own instincts he could not condemn himself for it, nor could he admit the authority of anyone, priest or ordinary man, to condemn him.
Looking out the window he saw that the storm had passed and that brilliant sunshine was pouring down on the wet earth through a hole in the clouds. Then he knew that his head was screaming with pain. He put his hand against his forehead and sat down. He lay still in the chair for a long time, his head pounding, his eyes closed. When he next opened his eyes he saw Kathleen standing in the doorway. How long she had been there he had no idea.
“You look awful,” she said. “What is it? You look sick.”
“It’s my head again. Another headache, that’s all.”
“What did Father Beaubien say to you?”
“He–he spoke about Marius, that’s all.”
“Oh!” She looked at him, and knew it was not all. “Have they put him in the army yet?”
“Not yet.”
Raising his eyes, he saw Kathleen’s face bending over his, then closing in. The warm softness of her lips touched his own.
“Athanase…what happened?”
“Don’t be frightened.” From somewhere out of his subconscious a new set of words came. They were quite unpremeditated. “No one should be frightened of God.”
She drew away from him with a puzzled look. “You’re sure you’re all right?”
He rose, passed his hand over his eyes, and walked out to the hall. “I’m all right,” he said. “Don’t bother about me.”
He went upstairs at a normal pace, and she followed. He undressed slowly, calmly, and she stood by and picked up his clothes, one piece after another. Undressed, he relaxed in the coolness of the sheets and kept his eyes closed. He felt her hand on his forehead, then heard her steps receding and the sound of her door quietly closing.
It was good to be alone again. His blood pressure had given him quite a scare for a moment. But no, he was not ready to die yet. He would sleep, and by morning he would be fine. Too many problems were unsolved for him to die now. If he put his mind to them he would manage all right. A stubborn smile wavered across his grey lips and away again. No, he was not beaten yet, changes would come and he would guide them; he would hang on and no childish thoughts of guilt would stop him, he was not beaten and never would be.