CHAPTER V
JEAN tried hard to be interested in his daily work. The day after Henri left him he went to the Bank with the greatest punctuality, and had in consequence to walk up and down the pavement for half an hour outside, before the door opened. It was a chastening experience and Jean did not repeat it. He worked with diligence and industry at the tasks the head clerk assigned him, and found that by so doing he had hours on his hands with nothing to do at all; he also annoyed his fellow clerks, and they told him so. Jean was an extremely good-natured person upon all indifferent subjects (and like all artists, most subjects were indifferent to him). His pride was far too deep-seated an affair ever to appear in the presence of his inferiors, so that he gave up any inordinate desire to distinguish himself among columns of figures and bundles of cheques, and wrote bars of music on all available scraps of paper instead. This amused Jean and appeased the clerks, and thebusiness of the Bank, not being entirely in the hands of these young gentlemen, went on in much the same manner as before.
After a fortnight the clerks decided that as Jean had shown no nonsense about him, had borne ridicule with indifference and accepted tips of the trade with a clear desire to show himself amenable, he might, if he responded favourably, be introduced into their real life.
Jean was intensely anxious to see real life and without the remotest notion of what it meant, so he responded with enthusiasm. He was invited to dine with three men at a café and go on to a few little things afterwards.
It was then that Jean made a most shocking discovery—he did not like life!
No! there was no doubt about it whatever; he was twenty-one, and in full possession of his faculties, and this presentment of existence so handsomely offered him by these junior clerks of the Banque de Paris et des Pays-Bas did not amuse him at all. It even appeared to him ugly, meaningless and vulgar. This then was what the Curé meant by temptation, and what the doctor meant by “life,” and what his Aunt Anne would doubtless mean—a little sweepingly perhaps—by “sin.” And it was this kind of thing which destroyed his father?
It could not help surprising Jean; and it did not occur to him that there are as many forms ofone particular kind of temptation as there are shapes of one particular feature, and because you do not admire a snub nose there is still the possibility of submission to the shape of a perfect Greek. At first Jean thought that perhaps the world was right and he was wrong (this is a great admission for any youth to make) and that the only difficulty lay in amusement being an acquired taste. So without confiding to his fellow clerks how extremely he disliked their little parties (which were for the most part harmless enough and not more vulgar than the extremely small salaries at their disposal warranted) Jean set himself to acquire the missing flavour. He was very much in earnest about it, and he spent an awful evening trying to entertain a little lady, who sang at a café, and to whom he had been introduced as a great and enormous privilege the evening before. The little lady had one idea of amusement and poor Jean had quite another. She wanted to attract attention, and it appeared that Jean did not. When at the end of the evening she got up on a table and danced, Jean would have liked to get under it and be no more seen.
It was then that he made his second decision. He saw that he was meant to be a hermit. It was quite probable that the lady would have agreed with him.
Jean set about altering his life as fast as possible; at twenty-one there is never any time to lose. Sofar his religion had been as natural as the air he breathed, but it had not been, so he owned himself, very practical. He had been born a good Catholic, as he had been born a gentleman, and he had considered his faith in the light of spiritual good manners. One fasted on Fridays and vigils and went to Mass on Sunday; it would have been extremely bad form and regrettably republican not to do so; still Jean felt that there were depths he had never plumbed. He told his Confessor this, and he pointed out to him that he was drawn to a higher life; he also added that he could not for a moment understand a taste for any other. The Confessor was an old man, he knew a good deal about life, and he listened very humbly to Jean. He saw that Jean was suffering from a feeling that the Church had hardly done its duty in permitting sin at this time of day to exist, and that something ought to be done about it at once. Jean explained to the Confessor that he thought the world, the flesh and the devil overrated as temptations, and if only the Church would show people how dull and vulgar all life that was not a direct spiritual vocation was, hermits would increase from that moment. The Confessor did not say that this, to him, would hardly be a desirable termination. He was not at all a sarcastic Confessor, and he was very fond of young men.
“I think, perhaps,” he said rather cautiously, “you do not know all about it yet. There are”—hehesitated again; he seemed a painfully slow old man to Jean—“so many different kinds of things.” He finished very lamely, Jean thought.
“To me there are only two kinds of things,” said Jean firmly—“what is beautiful and what is not. I have chosen.” He expected the priest to say something more, something a little appreciative perhaps, but he only sighed. “Of course, other people may be different,” added Jean, who was afraid he might have sounded intolerant.
“But I do not think they are,” said his Confessor gently. “My dear son, I think we are all very much alike. I have lived a long while, and I have seen very few different people, and those who have sometimes thought themselves so have not always proved very wise.”
Jean let this pass, it did not sound to him very probable.
“But you approve of my desire, do you not, father?” he added with impatience; he was beginning to think he had not made a good choice of a Confessor.
“I do not think I know quite what it is,” said the priest, after a pause.
“I mean to join the Third Order of St. Francis, and, while endeavouring, for a year at least, to stay in the world, to be preparing myself possibly for a sterner vocation.” How proud and pleased the good Curé at home would have been if he could have heard Jean, and how disgusted the doctor!But Jean’s present auditor was neither pleased nor disgusted, nor even very much surprised.
“I should not join any Order yet if I were you,” he answered. “You have told me that you are twenty-one—no, I should not join any Order; but for the rest I approve, my son, only——” The Confessor paused again.
“Yes, my father?” said Jean. He felt that every moment was wasted in which he was not leading the higher life, and he was impatient for the Confessor to give him some rules.
“Only,” said the father at last, “I think we should all beware of spiritual pride, it is apt to weaken the mind. I fancy we cannot see very clearly what is right if we are too sure about what is wrong. I fear I express myself very badly.”
Jean privately thought he did, but he could not very well say so; besides, he knew that he was in no danger from spiritual pride, he meant to be very humble and absolutely obedient, even to this rather foolish old man. It was a great sacrifice to Jean not to join the Third Order, but he never dreamed of doing so after his Confessor had advised him not to.
“If you can help it,” added his Confessor, “do not make up your mind very much about anything else, just now.”
“But do not you think it well to be definite, my father?” Jean asked, in great astonishment.
The old priest spoke quite firmly this time, it was the end of the interview.
“No, my son,” he said. “I do not think it well to be very definite; I think it better to be obedient. We all know a great deal—that is our danger; let us see that we do a little of it—this is our security.” And he dismissed Jean, to whom he had not given a single rule, at least Jean could not remember that he had.