Truth [Vérité]. Emile Zola
![Truth [Vérité] - Emile Zola](limg_read862278.jpg "Truth [Vérité] - Emile Zola")
without intoxicating himself. A peasant's son, and therefore narrow and stubborn in his opinions, he always insisted upon his rights and his dues, never foregoing a single copper of the latter, even when the poorest of his parishioners was in question. Thus he was very anxious to hold Mayor Martineau in his power in order to become the real master of the commune, and thereby increase his own profits as well as assure the triumph of religion. As for his quarrel with Marc, this had arisen over a sum of thirty francs a year which the parish had arranged to pay the schoolmaster for ringing the church bell, and which Marc, for a time, duly received, although he absolutely refused to put his hands to the bell-rope.
Martineau was not easily won over when he found himself supported. Of the same age as the priest, square of face and sturdy of build, ruddy and bright-eyed, he spoke little and evinced great caution. He was said to be the wealthiest cultivator of the commune, and, his extensive property gaining him the favour of his fellow parishioners, he had been Mayor of Jonville for ten years past. Scarcely knowing how to read and write, he did not care to pronounce openly between the Church and the school; he thought it best to affect neutrality, though he always ended by siding with one or the other, according whether he felt the priest or the schoolmaster to be the stronger. In the depths of his heart he was inclined to favour the latter, for in his veins coursed some of that ancient rancour which animates the French peasant against the priest, whom he regards as an idle man bent on enjoying life, one indeed who does nothing and yet requires to be paid, and who captures the wives and daughters of his parishioners in the name of an invisible, jealous and ever-threatening Deity. But if Martineau did not follow the Church observances, he had never opposed his curé without assistance, for he held that the black-gowns were extremely clever, whatever else might be said about them. Thus it was largely because Marc displayed so much quiet energy and intelligence that Martineau had joined his side, allowing him to go forward without pledging himself too much.
But it occurred to Abbé Cognasse to make use of the Mayor's wife, the beautiful Martineau, who, although she was not one of his penitents, attended church very regularly on Sundays and festivals. Very dark, with large eyes, a fresh mouth, and a buxom figure, she was coquettishly inclined, fond of exhibiting a new gown, of airing a lace cap, of arraying herself in her gold jewellery. Her assiduity at Mass was due to that alone. Church-going had become her diversion. There was no other spot whither she could repair in full dress, to show herself, and pass her neighbours in review. Indeed, in that village of less than eight hundred souls, for lack of any other meeting place and occasion for ceremony and festival, the damp little nave of the church, where Mass was so hastily celebrated, became the drawing-room, the theatre, the one general parade and recreation ground of the women who were desirous of pleasing. Those who went thither were influenced very little by faith; their craving was to wear their Sunday finery and to show themselves. Their mothers had done it, their daughters would do it also; it was the general custom. As for Madame Martineau, on being approached and flattered by Abbé Cognasse, she endeavoured to convince her husband that the priest was right in the matter of the thirty francs. But Martineau sharply bade her hold her tongue and return to her cows, for he belonged to the old school, and did not allow women to meddle in matters which concerned men.
In itself the story of the thirty francs was very simple. Ever since there had been a schoolmaster at Jonville he had been paid that sum annually to ring the church bell. But Marc, being unwilling to do so, ended by persuading the parish council to devote the money to another purpose. If the priest needed a bellringer he could surely pay for one himself. But the old clock in the church steeple was in a sad condition, constantly losing time, and a former clockmaker, dwelling in the vicinity, was willing to repair it and keep it in working order for that very sum of thirty francs a year. It was with some little malice that Marc suggested the acceptance of the offer, while the peasants reflected and sounded themselves, wondering whether their interests would be best served by having the bell rung for Mass, or by having a clock to tell them the correct time. As for ensuring both services by voting an additional thirty francs, they never gave that point a moment's thought, for their policy was to burden the parish with no useless expense whatever. Nevertheless, there was a fine tussle, in which the influence of the priest and that of the schoolmaster came into collision, the latter finally remaining victorious, in spite of the maledictions which Abbé Cognasse, in his sermons, heaped on the impious folk who, by silencing the bell, wished to silence the call of religion. One fine Sunday morning, however, after a month's quietude, a succession of furious peals resounded from the church steeple; and people then discovered that the priest's old servant, the terrible Palmyre, was ringing the bell with all the furious strength of her wiry little arms.
Abbé Cognasse understood that the Mayor was escaping him, and, though inwardly aglow with anger, he henceforth became prudent, displaying all the flexible craft of his cloth. Then, as Martineau grew conscious of the firmness of the hands to which he had confided himself, he more and more frequently consulted Marc, who at last felt that he was master. As parish clerk the young man ended by discreetly guiding the council, duly respecting the self-esteem of its members and remaining in the background, content to inspire those peasants, whose chief desire was for quietude and prosperity, with intelligence, sense, and healthy determination. Under the young man's auspices education spread, casting light upon all things, destroying foolish superstitions, and driving not only mental poverty but also the poverty of homes away; for wealth comes with knowledge. Never indeed had Jonville made so much progress; it was becoming the most prosperous and the happiest parish of the department.
It must be said that Marc was greatly assisted in his work by Mademoiselle Mazeline, the mistress of the girls' school, which a wall alone separated from the boys' school, where the young man was master. Short and dark, quite destitute of beauty, but very charming, with a broad face, a full kindly mouth, fine black eyes glowing with tenderness and abnegation beneath a lofty and bossy brow, Mademoiselle Mazeline was all intelligence, sense, healthy and upright determination, like one born to educate and emancipate the little girls confided to her. She came from that Training School of Fontenay-aux-Roses which, thanks to the heart and mind of an illustrious master, has already sent forth a whole cohort of able pioneers, whose mission it is to form the wives and mothers of to-morrow. And if, at six and twenty years of age, the young woman was already mistress of a school, it was thanks to her intelligent superiors, Salvan and Le Barazer, who were giving her a trial in that lonely village in order to ascertain if she would turn out the good work which they awaited. At heart they felt some anxiety on account of her advanced opinions, fearing that she might indispose her pupils' parents by her anti-clerical views, her conviction that woman would only bring happiness to the world when she was at last delivered from the priests. But Mademoiselle Mazeline behaved with great sense and good humour, and if she did not take her girls to Mass, she treated them in such a motherly fashion, taught them and cared for them so affectionately, that the peasants became deeply attached to her. Thus she greatly helped Marc in his work by proving that, although one may not go to Mass, and although one may set one's belief more particularly in human work and conscientiousness, one may nevertheless become the most intelligent, most upright, and kindly woman in the world.
But Abbé Cognasse, whatever his repulse at Jonville, fully revenged himself at Le Moreux, a little parish some two and a half miles distant, which, having no priest of its own, was dependent upon him. If, however, there were less than two hundred inhabitants at Le Moreux, and if the village was hidden away among the hills, the difficult roads cutting it off from frequent intercourse with the rest of the world, on the other hand it was by no means a wretched spot. Its only poor family was that of its schoolmaster; all the others possessed fertile lands, and lived with hardly a care amid the sleepy quietude of routine. Saleur, the Mayor, a short stout man with a bovine muzzle and little or no neck, had been a grazier, and had suddenly made a fortune by selling his meadow lands, herds, and flocks at a high price to a company, which wished to syndicate all the stock-raising in the department. Since then he had transformed his house into a coquettish villa, and had become a bourgeois, sending his son Honoré to the Beaumont Lycée before letting him go as a student to Paris. Although the people of Moreux were jealous of Saleur, they reappointed him Mayor at each election, for the all-sufficient reason that, having to do nothing for a living, he was well able to attend to the parish affairs. He, however, cast them upon the shoulders of Férou, the schoolmaster, who as parish clerk received an annual salary of one hundred and eighty francs,