Джозеф Конрад - Suspense

He looked with impatience at the priest, who remained silent, and burst out in a subdued voice:

“I believe you people are hoping now to bring him back into the world again, that old friend of yours.” He waited for a moment. “Sit down, Abbé.”

Father Carpi sank into the arm–chair with some dignity, while Count Helion snatched a three–legged stool and planted himself on it on the other side of the table. “Now, wouldn’t you?”

Something not bitter, not mocking, but as if disillusioned, seemed to touch the lips of Father Carpi at the very moment he opened them to say quietly:

“Only as a witness to the reign of God.”

“Which of course would be your reign. Never mind, a man like me can be master under any reign.” He jerked his head slightly towards the bed. “Now what sort of devil would it be in that child?”

The deprecatory gesture of Father Carpi did not detract from his dignity. “I should call it dumb myself,” continued Count Helion. “We will leave it alone for a time. What hurts me often is the difficulty of getting at your thoughts, Abbé. Haven’t I been a good enough friend to you?” To this, too, Father Carpi answered by a deferential gesture and deprecatory murmur. Count Helion had restored the church, rebuilt the presbytery, and had behaved generally with great munificence. Father Carpi, sprung from shop–keeping stock in the town of Novi, had lived through times difficult for the clergy. He had been contented to exist. Now at the age of forty or more, the downfall of the empire, which seemed to carry with it the ruin of the impious forces of the Revolution, had awakened in him the first stirrings of ambition. Its immediate object was the chaplaincy to the Count de Montevesso’s various charitable foundations.

There was a man, one of the great of this world, whom, without understanding him in any deeper sense or ever trying to judge his nature, he could see plainly enough to be unhappy. And that was a great point. For the unhappy are more amenable to obscure influences, religious and others. But Father Carpi was too intelligent to intrude upon the griefs of that man with the mysterious past, either religious consolation or secular advice. For a long time now he had watched and waited, keeping his thoughts so secret that they seemed even hidden from himself. To the outbreaks of that rough, arrogant, contemptuous and oppressive temper he could oppose only the gravity of his sacerdotal character as Adèle did her lofty serenity, that detachment, both scornful and inaccessible, which seemed to place her on another plane.

Father Carpi had never been before confronted so directly by the difficulties of his position as at that very moment, and on the occasion of that intolerable and hopeless girl. To gain time he smiled, a slight, non–committal smile.

“We priests, Monsieur le Comte, are recommended not to enter into discussion of theological matters with people who, whatever their accomplishments and wisdom, are not properly instructed in them. As to anything else, I am always at monseigneur’s service.”

He gave this qualification to Count Helion because it was not beyond the bounds of respect due from a poor parish priest to a titled great man of his province.

“Have you been much about amongst the town people?” asked Count Helion.

“I go out every morning about seven to say Mass in that church you may have noticed near by. I have visited also once or twice an old friend from my seminary days, a priest of a poor parish here. We rejoice together at the return of the Holy Father to Rome. For the rest I had an idea, monseigneur, that you did not wish me to make myself prominent in any way in this town.”

“Perhaps I didn’t. It may be convenient, though, to know what are the rumours current amongst the populace. That class has its own thoughts. I suppose your friend would know something of that?”

“No doubt. But I can tell you, monseigneur, what the people think. They think that if they can’t be Genoese as before, they would rather be French than Piedmontese. That, monseigneur, is a general feeling even amongst the better class of citizens.”

“Much would they gain by it,” mumbled Count de Montevesso. “Unless the other were to come back. L’Abbé,” he added sharply, “is there any talk of him coming back?”

“That indeed would be a misfortune.” Father Carpi’s tone betrayed a certain emotion, which Count Helion noticed, faint as it was.

“Whatever happens, you will have always a friend in me,” he said, and Father Carpi acknowledged the assurance by a slight inclination of his body.

“Surely God would not allow it,” he murmured uneasily. But the stare of his interlocutor augmented his alarm. He was still more startled when he heard Count de Montevesso make the remark that the only thing which seemed to put a limit to the power of God was the folly of men. He had too poor an opinion of Count de Montevesso to be shocked by the blasphemy. To him it was only proof that the count had been very much upset by something, some fact or some news.

“And people are very foolish just now, both in Paris and in Vienna,” added Count de Montevesso after a long pause.

It was news then. Father Carpi betrayed nothing of his anxious curiosity. The inward unrest which pervaded the whole basin of the western Mediterranean was strongest in Italy perhaps, and was very strong in the heart of Father Carpi, who was both an Italian and a priest. Perhaps he would be told something! He almost held his breath, but Count de Montevesso took his head between his hands and said only:

“One is pestered by folly of all sorts. L’Abbé, see whether you can bring that child to reason.”

However low in the scale of humanity Father Carpi placed the Count de Montevesso, he never questioned his social position. Father Carpi was made furious by the request, but he obeyed. He approached the rustic bedstead, and looked at the occupant with sombre disgust. Nothing was obscure to him in the situation. If he could not tell exactly what devil possessed that creature, he remembered perfectly her mother, a rash sort of girl, who was found drowned years ago in a remarkably shallow pond amongst some rocks not quite a mile away from the presbytery. It might have been an accident. He had consented to bury her in consecrated ground, not from any compassion, but because of the revolutionary spirit which had penetrated even the thick skulls of his parishioners, and probably would have caused a riot and shaken the precarious power of the Church in his obscure valley. He stood erect by the head of the couch looking down at the girl’s uncovered eye, whose sombre iris swam on the glistening white. He could have laughed with contempt and fury. He regulated his deep voice so that it reached Count de Montevesso at the other side of the room only as a solemn admonishing murmur.

“You miserable little wretch,” he said, “can’t you behave yourself? You have been a torment to me for years.”

The sense of his own powerlessness overcame him so completely that he felt tempted for a moment to throw everything up, walk out of the room, seek refuge amongst sinners that would believe either in God or in the devil.

“You are a scourge to us all,” he continued in the same equable murmur. “If you don’t speak out, you little beast, and put an end to this scene soon, I will exorcise you.”

The only effect of that threat was the sudden immobility of the rolling eye. Father Carpi turned towards the count.

“It is probably some sort of malady,” he said coldly. “Perhaps a doctor could prescribe some remedy.”

Count Helion came out of his listless attitude. A moment ago a doctor was in the house in conference with M. le Marquis. Perhaps he was still there. Count Helion got up impetuously and asked the abbé to go along to the other side and find out.