He remained awed by the turn the conversation had taken. He sought, mentally, a way of getting back to the subject from which Hyacinthe had diverted him, of the Satanism of Canon Docre.
"Well, let us think of that no more," she said, coming very near. She smiled, and was once more the Hyacinthe he knew.
"But if on my account you can no longer take communion-"
She interrupted him. "Would you be sorry if I did not love you?" and she kissed his eyes. He squeezed her politely in his arms, but he felt her trembling, and from motives of prudence he got away.
"Is he so inexorable, your confessor?"
"He is an incorruptible man, of the old school. I chose him expressly."
"If I were a woman it seems to me I should take, on the contrary, a confessor who was pliable and caressible and who would not violently pillory my dainty little sins. I would have him indulgent, oiling the hinges of confession, enticing forth with beguiling gestures the misdeeds that hung back. It is true there would be risk of seducing a confessor who perhaps would be defenceless-"
"And that would be incest, because the priest is a spiritual father, and it would also be sacrilege, because the priest is consecrated.-Oh," speaking to herself, "I was mad, mad-" suddenly carried away.
He observed her; sparks glinted in the myopic eyes of this extraordinary woman. Evidently he had just stumbled, unwittingly, onto a guilty secret of hers.
"Well," and he smiled, "do you still commit infidelities to me with a false me?"
"I do not understand."
"Do you receive, at night, the visit of the incubus which resembles me?"
"No. Since I have been able to possess you in the flesh I have no need to evoke your image."
"What a downright Satanist you are!"
"Maybe. I have been so constantly associated with priests."
"You're a great one," he said, bowing. "Now listen to me, and do me a great favour. You know Canon Docre?"
"I should say!"
"Well, what in the world is this man, about whom I hear so much?"
"From whom?"
"Gévingey and Des Hermies."
"Ah, you consult the astrologer! Yes, he met the Canon in my own house, but I didn't know that Docre was acquainted with Des Hermies, who didn't attend our receptions in those days"
"Des Hermies has never seen Docre. He knows him, as I do, only by hearsay, from Gévingey. Now, briefly, how much truth is there in the stories of the sacrileges of which this priest is accused?"
"I don't know. Docre is a gentleman, learned and well bred. He was even the confessor of royalty, and he would certainly have become a bishop if he had not quitted the priesthood. I have heard a great deal of evil spoken about him, but, especially in the clerical world, people are so fond of saying all sorts of things."
"But you knew him personally."
"Yes, I even had him for a confessor."
"Then it isn't possible that you don't know what to make of him?"
"Very possible, indeed presumable. Look here, you have been beating around the bush a long time. Exactly what do you want to know?"
"Everything you care to tell me. Is he young or old, handsome or ugly, rich or poor?"
"He is forty years old, very fastidious of his person, and he spends a lot of money."
"Do you believe that he indulges in sorcery, that he celebrates the black mass?"
"It is quite possible."
"Pardon me for dunning you, for extorting information from you as if with forceps-suppose I were to ask you a really personal question-this faculty of incubacy…?"
"Why, certainly I got it from him. I hope you are satisfied."
"Yes and no. Thanks for your kindness in telling me-I know I am abusing your good nature-but one more question. Do you know of any way whereby I may see Canon Docre in person?"
"He is at Nîmes."
"Pardon me. For the moment, he is in Paris."
"Ah, you know that! Well, if I knew of a way, I would not tell you, be sure. It would not be good for you to get to seeing too much of this priest."
"You admit, then, that he is dangerous?"
"I do not admit nor deny. I tell you simply that you have nothing to do with him."
"Yes I have. I want to get material for my book from him."
"Get it from somebody else. Besides," she said, putting on her hat in front of the glass, "my husband got a bad scare and broke with that man and refuses to receive him."
"That is no reason why-"
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, nothing." He repressed the remark: "Why you should not see him."
She did not insist. She was poking her hair under her veil. "Heavens! what a fright I look!"
He took her hands and kissed them. "When shall I see you again?"
"I thought I wasn't to come here any more."
"Oh, now, you know I love you as a good friend. Tell me, when will you come again?"
"Tomorrow night, unless it is inconvenient for you."
"Not at all."
"Then, au revoir."
Their lips met.
"And above all, don't think about Canon Docre," she said, turning and shaking her finger at him threateningly as she went out.
"Devil take you and your reticence," he said to himself, closing the door after her.
CHAPTER XVI
"When I think," said Durtal to himself the next morning, "that in bed, at the moment when the most pertinacious will succumbs, I held firm and refused to yield to the instances of Hyacinthe wishing to establish a footing here, and that after the carnal decline, at that instant when annihilated man recovers-alas!-his reason, I supplicated her, myself, to continue her visits, why, I simply cannot understand myself. Deep down, I have not got over my firm resolution of breaking with her, but I could not dismiss her like a cocotte. And," to justify his inconsistency, "I hoped to get some information about the canon. Oh, on that subject I am not through with her. She's got to make up her mind to speak out and quit answering me by monosyllables and guarded phrases as she did yesterday.
"Indeed, what can she have been up to with that abbé who was her confessor and who, by her own admission, launched her into incubacy? She has been his mistress, that is certain. And how many other of these priests she has gone around with have been her lovers also? For she confessed, in a cry, that those are the men she loves. Ah, if one went about much in the clerical world one would doubtless learn remarkable things concerning her and her husband. It is strange, all the same that Chantelouve, who plays a singular rôle in that household, has acquired a deplorable reputation, and she hasn't. Never have I heard anybody speak of her dodges-but, oh, what a fool I am! It isn't strange. Her husband doesn't confine himself to religious and polite circles. He hobnobs with men of letters, and in consequence exposes himself to every sort of slander, while she, if she takes a lover, chooses him out of a pious society in which not one of us would ever be received. And then, abbés are discreet. But how explain her infatuation with me? By the simple fact that she is surfeited of priests and a layman serves as a change of diet.
"Just the same, she is quite singular, and the more I see her the less I understand her. There are in her three distinct beings.
"First the woman seated or standing up, whom I knew in her drawing-room, reserved, almost haughty, who becomes a good companion in private, affectionate and even tender.
"Then the woman in bed, completely changed in voice and bearing, a harlot spitting mud, losing all shame.
"Third and last, the pitiless vixen, the thorough Satanist, whom I perceived yesterday.
"What is the binding-alloy that amalgamates all these beings of hers? I can't say. Hypocrisy, no doubt. No. I don't think so, for she is often of a disconcerting frankness-in moments, it is true, of forgetfulness and unguardedness. Seriously, what is the use of trying to understand the character of this pious harlot? And to be candid with myself, what I wish ideally will never be realized; she does not ask me to take her to swell places, does not force me to dine with her, exacts no revenue: she isn't trying to compromise and blackmail me. I shan't find a better-but, oh, Lord! I now prefer to find no one at all. It suits me perfectly to entrust my carnal business to mercenary agents. For my twenty francs I shall receive more considerate treatment. There is no getting around it, only professionals know how to cook up a delicious sensual dish.