Michel Déon - The Foundling Boy

It had been light for some time when he awoke to find that the bed next to him was empty and the curious priest had sneaked away. He got up and was splashing himself from the pitcher when the door opened on a beaming Palfy.

‘Jean Arnaud, the road awaits. I have made my morning’s devotions at the church next door. Breakfast is ready downstairs: sadly no China tea in this hovel, only an inferior variety from Ceylon. But I made the toast myself. Obviously there’s no marmalade. We’ll replace it with honey from the Cévennes. I hope you’re not prejudiced.’

‘Me prejudiced? No. I thought you’d gone.’

‘I wonder what sort of a man you take me for.’

‘To tell you the truth, I’ve no idea.’

Father Palfy held his sides. ‘Please don’t make me laugh on an empty stomach.’

The fat blonde woman served them breakfast in the restaurant, where the smells of the previous day’s menu still lingered. Half asleep, in slippers and a flower-print robe, she brought the things one by one.

‘She is a model of inefficiency,’ Palfy said when she had left them.

But awfully natural … all the dereliction of the world is on a woman’s face when she wakes: without enthusiasm, befogged and distracted, with an obscure resentment against what has dragged her from limbo.

Jean had paid for dinner, and the priest now paid for their room in small change and crumpled notes that he dug out of a huge pocket at the hip of his cassock.

‘It won’t inconvenience you if I give you my small change, will it, Mademoiselle?’ he asked in an excessively polite voice.

‘Change?’

‘You don’t mind if I pay with coins?’

‘Coins?’

‘Fifty centimes, a franc …’

‘Er … no!’ she said, after an immense effort of thought that furrowed her badly plucked eyebrows and put a bitter crease in her unmade-up lips.

They set out once more in the Mathis, which after a night’s repose seemed rested and eager. It started immediately the priest cranked it and covered a good stretch of road before he thought he should check the level in the tank with his gauge. It was almost empty. They managed nevertheless to make it to the next pump, in a hamlet outside Valence. While the tank was being filled, Father Palfy disappeared in the direction of the church, from which he returned with a crestfallen expression.

‘Can you lend me a little money?’ he said to Jean. ‘I’ve hardly got a sou on me.’

Jean paid without demur, and was then surprised in the afternoon to see that the abbé was once again in funds after two prayers in a church at Saint-Étienne. Of course we have realised before Jean has: Constantin Palfy was looting the collection boxes along the road, preferably those belonging to Saint Christopher, patron saint of travellers, an unlucky saint who thirty years later would not survive the great reform, so long awaited, of the Catholic Church. A priest looting collection boxes: I admit that it doesn’t entirely make sense. We have a right to show surprise and indignation, especially as donations left at the saints’ plaster feet are properly intended for the poor. Father Palfy was not poor, he was just short of money. He was not a priest either, since we are on the subject, which I know is not a mitigating circumstance. I hasten to make this clear for the sake of those souls who still respect the clergy and will, of necessity, have an interest in his case. Of necessity because Constantin Palfy makes a more than fleeting appearance in this narrative. He has entered it thanks to the fortunes of travel, and he has no intention of leaving it in the years to come. I should also like to add before I go any further that, contrary to what one might think, he is a character of many shades, and it would be hasty to judge him by appearances. Jean himself was surprised not to feel any disapproval when he discovered the truth on their second evening. Constantin Palfy had made himself a little additional pocket money from a church, and they were having dinner at an auberge near Saint-Pourçain when Jean asked him to recite the Benedicite.

‘My dear boy,’ Father Palfy said, ‘you won’t catch me out like that. I know the Benedicite, even though, as you have guessed, I’m not a priest. But I did spend three years with the good fathers. A conscientious pupil, it must be said, and gifted with a fine memory. Why, then, am I dressed like a priest? One has to dress like somebody. One can hardly walk the roads in one’s underpants. The sacerdotal habit inspires trust, especially for those small exactions I’m reduced to making as a result of a very temporary lack of money. As to the moral aspects of the question, I owe you a confession: they leave me cold. I could invent good reasons — that the money of the poor is for the poor, or if you like, that I shall pay it back to the Church a hundredfold, or that this small change was offered to particular entities — saints — which have no earthly existence, so I’m not misappropriating a thing. I steal because I am in a situation where I have to steal to survive. Finally, and in short, thanks to a father superior who informed me of my expulsion from the college, I discovered the key to my character. “You cannot remain within our walls,” he said to me, “despite the fact that you are not really bad, but you are incurable because you are amoral .” The privative a, you see. I advise you therefore not to place any trust in me. Ever. Having said that, if my cassock offends you, tomorrow I shall appear in civilian dress, but we risk facing financial difficulties on the road ahead.’

‘I’ve got a bit of money. We’ll share it. And if we run out, we’ll work.’

‘Work is not my strong point, even though by happenstance I have been an interpreter, a chauffeur with a very aristocratic family, private tutor to a young prince and even a professional dance partner and I forget what else. But to be a proper worker you need to have known the worth of a good example. My father did nothing whatever. He spent his life gambling. As for my mother, she was too busy putting on her make-up to think about anything else. Not a good start, as you see.’

‘So what about the future?’

‘The future doesn’t exist. Only the present exists. And by way of an example we shall now celebrate these confidences, with which I’m usually very niggardly, by ordering a bottle of champagne if they have any in this joint, which so far has offered none of the usual hallmarks of a smart restaurant.’

They did. Jean accepted a single glass. Palfy’s self-assurance fascinated him. He felt he was faced with a man who did not resemble the men he knew in any way, a monstrous, astonishing exception, who had opened up a gulf at his feet. At the bottom of that gulf a thousand charms sparkled, of an adventurous and carefree existence, while the rest of humanity buried itself in low and menial tasks. Jean met Palfy’s dark velvet gaze; he was no longer smiling, but waiting for him to react. Jean extended his hand across the table. Palfy kept his arms crossed.

‘A pact? I cannot have made myself sufficiently clear,’ he said.

Jean continued to offer his hand.

‘Let’s try anyway.’

Palfy shrugged and shook the offered hand.

‘If it makes you happy.’

At seven o’clock next morning, carrying their shoes, they went downstairs and left by a service door to make their way to the Mathis, waiting for them at the roadside. Ten kilometres further on, Palfy threw his cassock into a ditch and put on a tweed suit with a matching cap.

‘You’re very elegant,’ Jean said. ‘I look like a rag-picker in these cotton trousers and this sweater.’

‘Elegant?’ Palfy said, frowning.

‘Yes, elegant.’

‘Are you saying I look loud?’