The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc
Le Mystère de la charité de Jeanne d’Arc
the mystery
of the charity
of Joan of Arc
NON SOLUM IN MEMORIAM SED IN INTENTIONEM
Not only to the memory but to the intention of Marcel Antoine Baudouin, of Saturday 25 July 1896
cahier for Christmas day and for Epiphany of the eleventh series; first preparatory cahier for the five hundredth anniversary of the birth of Joan of Arc, which will fall on Epiphany of the year 1912.
In full summer.
In the morning, Jeannette, the daughter of Jacques d’Arc, spins as she watches her father’s sheep, on a slope of the Meuse. One sees in the second plane, from right to left, the Meuse among the meadows, the village of Domremy with the church, and the road that leads to Vaucouleurs. To the left in the distance the village of Maxey. In the background the hills opposite: wheat-fields, vines and woods; the wheat is yellow.
Jeannette is thirteen and a half; Hauviette, her friend, ten years and a few months. Madame Gervaise is twenty-five.
Jeannette goes on spinning: then she rises; turns
toward the church; says the sign of the cross without making it: Jeannette
In the name of the Father; and of the So; and of the Holy Ghost; Amen.
Our Father who art in heaven; hallowed be thy name; thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread; and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us; and lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil. Amen.
Hail Mary, full of grace; the Lord is with thee; blessed art thou among women; and blessed is Jesus the fruit of thy womb. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us poor sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.
Saint John, my patron; Saint Joan, my patroness; pray for us; pray for us.
In the name of the Father; and of the So; and of the Holy Ghost; Amen.
Our father, our father who art in heaven, by how much it falls short that thy name be hallowed; by how much it falls short that thy kingdom come.
Our father, our father who art in the kingdom of heaven, by how much it falls short that thy kingdom come in the kingdom of earth.
Our father, our father who art in the kingdom of heaven, by how much it falls short that thy kingdom come in the kingdom of France.
Our father, our father who art in heaven, by how much it falls short that thy will be done; by how much it falls short that we have our daily bread.
By how much it falls short that we forgive our trespasses; and that we not succumb to temptation; and that we be delivered from evil. Amen.
O my God if only one saw the beginning of thy kingdom. If only one saw the sun of thy kingdom rising. But nothing, never anything. Thou didst send us thy Son, whom thou didst love so much, thy Son came, who suffered so much, and he died, and nothing, never anything. If only one saw the day of thy kingdom break. And thou didst send thy saints, thou didst call them each by their name, thy other sons the saints, and thy daughters the women saints, and thy saints came, and thy women saints came, and nothing, never anything. Years have passed, so many years that I do not know the number; centuries of years have passed; fourteen centuries of Christendom, alas, since the birth, and the death, and the preaching. And nothing, nothing, never anything. And what reigns upon the face of the earth, nothing, nothing, is nothing but perdition. Fourteen centuries (were they of Christendom), fourteen centuries since the ransom of our souls. And nothing, never anything, the reign of the earth is nothing but the reign of perdition, the kingdom of the earth is nothing but the kingdom of perdition. Thou didst send us thy Son and the other saints. And nothing flows upon the face of the earth, but a flood of ingratitude and of perdition. My God, my God, must it be that thy Son died in vain. He will have come; and it will have served nothing. It is worse than ever. If only one saw the sun of thy justice rising. But one would say, my God, my God, forgive me, one would say that thy kingdom is going away. Never has thy name been so blasphemed. Never has thy will been so despised. Never has there been so much disobedience. Never has our bread been so lacking to us; and if it were lacking only to us, my God, if it were lacking only to us; and if it were only the bread of the body that were lacking to us, the bread of maize, the bread of rye and of wheat; but another bread is lacking to us; the bread of the nourishment of our souls; and we are starved with another hunger; with the only hunger that leaves in the belly an imperishable hollow. Another bread is lacking to us. And instead of the reign of thy charity being the sole reign that reigns upon the face of the earth, of thy earth, of the earth thy creation, instead of the reign of the kingdom of thy charity being the sole reign that reigns, it is the reign of the imperishable kingdom, of sin. If only one saw the beginning of thy saints, if only one saw the beginning of the reign of thy saints break. But what has been done, my God, what has been done with thy creature, what has been done with thy creation? Never have so many offenses been committed; and never have so many offenses died unpardoned. Never has the Christian committed so much offense against the Christian, and never against thee, my God, never has man committed so much offense against thee. And never has so much offense died unpardoned. Shall it be said that thou wilt have sent us thy Son in vain, and that thy Son will have suffered in vain, and that he will have died. And must it be in vain that he sacrifices himself and that we sacrifice him every day. Shall it be in vain that a cross was raised up one day and that we ourselves raise it up again every day. What has been done with the Christian people, my God, with thy people. And it is no longer only temptations that besiege us, but temptations that triumph; and it is temptations that reign; and it is the reign of temptation; and the reign of the kingdoms of the earth has fallen entirely to the reign of the kingdom of temptation; and the wicked succumb to the temptation of evil, of doing evil; of doing evil to others; and, forgive me, my God, of doing evil to thee; but the good, those who were good, succumb to a temptation infinitely worse: to the temptation of believing that they are abandoned by thee. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, my God deliver us from evil, deliver us from evil. If there have not yet been enough women saints and enough saints, send us still others, send us as many as shall be needful; send us so many that the enemy grows weary. We will follow them, my God. We will do everything that thou wilt. We will do everything that they will. We will do everything that they tell us on thy behalf. We are thy faithful, send us thy saints; we are thy sheep, send us thy shepherds; we are the flock, send us the pastors. We are good Christians, thou knowest that we are good Christians. Then how is it that so many good Christians do not make a good Christendom. Something must not be working. If thou didst send us, if only thou wert willing to send us one of thy women saints. There are still some. They say there are. One sees some. One knows some. One is acquainted with some. But one does not know how it comes about. There are women saints, there is sanctity, and yet it does not work all the same. There is something that does not work. There are women saints, there is sanctity, and yet never had the reign of the kingdom of perdition dominated so much upon the face of the earth. Perhaps something else would be needful, my God, thou knowest everything. Thou knowest what we lack. Perhaps we need something new, something that has never yet been seen. Something that has never yet been done. But who would dare say, my God, that there could still be anything new after fourteen centuries of Christendom, after so many women saints and so many saints, after all thy martyrs, after the passion and the death of thy Son.
She sits down again and begins to spin once more.
In fact what we would need, my God, would be to send us a woman saint… who would succeed.
A voice rises from the valley, comes, draws near. It is Hauviette who is coming. She climbs from the village by the path. She sings:
The English will not have
The tower of Saint-Nick Nick
The English will not have
The Tower of Saint-Nicholas.
Jeannette
My God, my God, we will be very good, we will be very submissive, we will be very obedient. We will be very faithful.
My God, my God, we are thy children, we are thy children.
Hauviette appears coming. Jeannette
My God, my God, what has been done with thy people.
Enter Hauviette. She begins still singing, as if her words were only the natural continuation of her song, and comes back down only by degrees to her ordinary speech. Hauviette
— Good day, Jeannette.
Jeannette
— Good day, Hauviette.
A silence. Hauviette
— You were saying your prayer?
Jeannette A fairly long silence.
— I was saying my prayer. There is so much lacking. There is so much to ask for.
Hauviette
— The good God knows well what we need, the good God knows well what we lack.
Then still as if chattering:
You were saying your prayer. Do not excuse yourself for it. Do not defend yourself from it. I do not reproach you for it. You do not need to defend yourself from it. There is no harm in it. You do not need to be ashamed.
Jeannette A silence.
— I was saying my prayer. You too, Hauviette, you say your prayer.
Hauviette
— Me, I am a good Christian like everyone, I say my prayer like everyone, I am a good parishioner like everyone. Right, I say my prayer every morning and every evening, my Our Father and my Hail Mary, to begin and to end my day. And then it fills my day for me; right, that suffices to fill my whole day for me, to make me hold up my day; it holds my heart all day long. It makes me get through my whole day. I am a good Christian. One says one’s two prayers as one takes one’s three meals. It is just as natural. It is the same thing. That is what makes the day. One does not eat all day. One does not say one’s prayer all day. I am a good parishioner. I also say my prayer at the morning Angelus and at the evening Angelus, even if I were doing anything whatever, I stop doing it, naturally, to answer the bell. I am a good parishioner of the parish of Domremy. I go to catechism like everyone. And on Sunday I go to the village to mass and to church like everyone. Only, here it is, with me, Sunday must not resemble the days of the week and the days of the week must not resemble Sunday. And the hours of prayer must not resemble the other hours of the day, nor the other hours of the day the hours of prayer. Without that, then, otherwise, it is as if there were no Sunday. In the week. And no hours of prayer. In the day. Then there is no use having a Sunday. One must not work on Sunday. But then one must work in the week. There is one day for the good God, and the other days are for working. To work is to pray. I go to catechism Sunday morning before mass. There is a time for everything. To each hour sufficient is its trouble. And its work. Each thing in its time. To work, to pray, that is all natural, that, that takes care of itself.
Sunday must stand out in the week and the Angelus and the hour of prayer must stand out in the day.
Yes Jeannette, my fair one, I say my prayer, but you, you never come out of saying it, you say it all the time, you do not come out of it, you say it at all the crosses of the road, the church does not suffice for you. Never had the crosses of the roads been so used…
Jeannette
— Hauviette, Hauviette…
Hauviette
— Don’t get angry, my fair one. Never had the crosses of the roads been so used…
Jeannette
— Alas alas one cross one day was used, a real cross, of wood, on a mountain, was used once… what once.
Hauviette
— You see, you see. What we know, we others, you see it. What is taught to us, we others, you see it. The catechism, all the catechism, and the church, and the mass, you do not know it, you see it, and your prayer you do not say it, you do not merely say it, you see it. For you there are no weeks. And there are no days. There are no days in the week; and no hours in the day. All the hours sound for you like the bell of the Angelus. All the days are Sundays and more than Sundays and the Sundays more than Sundays and than the Sunday of Christmas and than the Sunday of Easter and the mass more than the mass…
Jeannette
— There is nothing more than the mass.
Hauviette
— I am a good parishioner of the parish of Domremy in Lorraine, in my Lorraine of Christendom. There. That is all. But for you never had the crosses of these countries here been so used since they had come into the world, never had the crosses of stone been so used, never had the crosses of Christendom hereabouts, the crosses of these countries here of Christendom received so many prayers, in all the time since they had come into the world, as in the thirteen and a half years that you, you have come into the world. There is what I know. And the cross that is at the crossroads of the road to Maxey.
Jeannette
— Alas, alas, that is because it is the road that leads to the enemies, the road to the enemy village. How can Christians be enemies, children of the same God, brothers of Jesus.
All brothers of Jesus.
Hauviette
— So much so that you are ashamed…
Jeannette
— Hauviette, Hauviette…
Hauviette
— So much so that you are ashamed, of being always in prayer, and that you hide. You say the sign of the cross, instead of making it, at the beginning and at the end of your prayers, so that one does not see you, because you would make it all the time.
Jeannette
— Alas.
Hauviette
— You want to be like the others. You want to be like everyone. You do not want to draw attention to yourself. You may try as you will. You will never succeed.
Jeannette
— I am a shepherdess like everyone, I am a Christian like everyone, I am a parishioner like everyone.
I am your friend like you.
Hauviette
— You may try as you will, you may say what you will, you may believe what you will: you are our friend, never will you be like us.
I do not hold it against you. I am in the hand of the good God. We are in the hand of the good God, all of us, and the earth, entire, is in the hand of the good God. It takes everything to make a world. It takes creatures of every sort to make a creation. It takes parishioners of every sort to make a parish. It takes Christians of every sort to make a Christendom.
Jeannette
— There have been saints of every sort. It has taken saints and women saints of every sort. And today there would have to be some. There would perhaps still have to be one of one more sort.
Hauviette
— You are among us, you are not like us, never will you be like us. Me, when I say my prayer, I am content, for the time that it lasts. For the time of saying it, and for the time that it lasts afterward. Until the next one. Until the following one.
Jeannette
— Alas.
Hauviette
— But with you it always leaves you with your hunger, the saying of your prayer. And you are always as unhappy as before. After as before. Listen, Jeannette: I know why you want to see Madame Gervaise.
Jeannette
— Nobody has yet guessed it, neither mama, nor my elder sister, nor our friend Mengette.
Hauviette
— I know, I do, why you want to see her, this Madame Gervaise.
Jeannette
— Then, Hauviette, you are very unhappy.
Hauviette
— Unhappy, unhappy, I am unhappy when it is my turn. It is not always my turn. Only I am a girl who sees clearly. You want to see Madame Gervaise because of this distress that you have in your soul, all the way down, to the very bottom of your soul. People imagine here, in the parish, that you are happy with your life because you do charity, because you tend the sick and console those who are afflicted; and that you are always there with those who have sorrow. But me, me Hauviette, I know that you are unhappy.
Jeannette
— You know it because you are my friend, Hauviette.
Hauviette
— I am not your friend only, I am a girl who sees clearly. To do good to others, for us others that would do us good, if only we did some. But for you nothing does you good. Everything does you harm. Everything leaves you with your hunger. You consume yourself, you consume yourself, you are consumed with sadness, you are lost in sadness, you have, poor big one, you have a fever, a fever of sadness, and you do not get well, you never cure yourself. You have a great fever. You are kneaded with sadness. Your soul is kneaded with sadness. Your uncle has gone to fetch her, right.
Jeannette
— It is true that my soul is in sadness. Just now again…
Hauviette
— Then why pretend, why want to resemble everyone.
Jeannette
— Because I am afraid.
Hauviette
— Sadness, fear, distress. It is a great family and there are many of them. One would say that you have consumed all the sadness of the earth.
Jeannette
— How could a soul not be drowned in sadness. Just now again I saw two children pass, two little boys, two little ones who were coming down all alone by the path over there. Behind the birches, behind the hedge. The bigger one was dragging the other. They were weeping, they were crying: I am hungry, I am hungry, I am hungry… I could hear them from here. I called them. I did not want to leave my sheep. They had not seen me. They came running, crying like little dogs. The bigger one was a good seven years old.
Hauviette
— The smaller one was a good three years old. Midges, brats. I know them very well, your foundlings.
Jeannette
— Hauviette, Hauviette.
Hauviette
— I met them coming up. I was going up, they were going down. They are always going down. They called me madam. It’s funny. Yes, they said to me: (imitating) Good day, madam. It is very funny. They also said to me: Madam, there is a madam shepherdess who is watching her sheep up there at the end of the road and who is making wool. Yes, yes, that’s you madam shepherdess. Mischievously. They looked well, your two. They looked very well. They were content. They had the air of being happy to be alive.
Jeannette
— They came running like little dogs. They were crying: Madam I am hungry, madam I am hungry.
Hauviette
— You forget some. They must have called you, yes, yes, they certainly called you (saluting) madam shepherdess. They were too keen on it. They were too pleased with you, afterward. And they were also too pleased with that, of calling you that. It is not like me.
Jeannette
— You, you don’t care about it. You are right, little fool, little pest. They called me madam shepherdess.
Hauviette
— You see well. Me, I don’t even pay attention to it. I did not hear anything.
Jeannette
— They were crying: Madam I am hungry, madam I am hungry. It went into my belly and into my heart, it crushed me as if cries could crush the heart. It hurt me. Looking suddenly at Hauviette in the eyes. I am perhaps not the only madam who cannot bear the cries of children.
Hauviette
— Come on, be quiet. Will you be quiet. Whom do you mean? Of whom do you want to speak? I do not know her. I do not know any. I have not heard of any. No, no, I do not know anyone. Finish it, your story, and let us speak of it no more. I know it, your story. You bore me with your story. There is no use finishing it. I know it, the end of your story. You gave them all your bread.
Jeannette
— I gave them all my bread, my noon meal and my four o’clock meal. They jumped on it like animals, they threw themselves on it like animals; and their joy hurt me, hurt me still more, because all at once in spite of myself I grasped it, it worked in me all at once in my head, it became clear all at once in my head; and in spite of myself I thought; I understood; I saw; I thought of all the other starving ones who do not eat, of so many starving ones, of innumerable starving ones; I thought of all the unhappy ones, who are not consoled, of so many and so many unhappy ones, of innumerable unhappy ones; I thought of the worst of all, of the last, of the extreme, of the worst, of those who do not want one to console them, of so many and so many who no longer want to be consoled, who are disgusted with consolation, and who despair of the goodness of God. The unhappy grow weary of unhappiness and together of consolation itself; they are more quickly tired of being consoled than we of consoling them; as if there were at the heart of consolation a hollow; as if it were worm-eaten; and when we are still all ready to give, they are no longer ready to receive, they no longer want to receive; they no longer consent; they no longer have hunger to receive; they no longer want to receive anything; how is one to give to him who no longer wants to receive; women saints would be needful; new women saints would be needful, who would invent new sorts. And I felt that I was going to weep. Then I had swollen eyes, I turned my head, because I did not want to grieve them, those two, at least.
Hauviette
— Yes, yes, you have invented that too. All that is very perfected. You have a secret for that. You manage to suffer more than those who suffer themselves. Where the unhappy are unhappy once, you make yourselves unhappy a hundred times, for the same unhappiness. When the unhappy are unhappy, you are unhappy; when the unhappy are happy, you are unhappy; for a change. When the unhappy are unhappy, you are unhappy with them; when the unhappy are happy, to make up for it, you are still more unhappy. You will have to change that, my girl, you will have to change that. Or it will end badly. They were happy, those two boys, while they were eating your bread. That always made them a good quarter of an hour. Then you, you take advantage of it to make for yourselves another bad quarter of an hour. That is always so much gained. You are clever. You lose nothing. A quarter of an hour worse. You know how to take advantage, you take advantage of everything. A quarter of an hour worse. That is always so much to the good. That is always so much won. You are profiteers.
Jeannette
— I gave them my bread: a fine advance! They will be hungry tonight; they will be hungry tomorrow.
Hauviette
— They will be hungry tonight, they were not thinking of it this morning; they were hungry yesterday, they were not thinking of it this morning. But you, you were thinking of it. You are hungry for others. They will find others.
You are hungry, for others who are hungry, even when they are not hungry.
Jeannette
— To fast, to fast would be nothing. One would fast all the time if it served all the time.
One would fast all the time if it served once. One would fast all the time if it never served.
Hauviette
— Neither tomorrow’s troubles, nor yesterday’s troubles: today only today’s troubles. One must take the weather as it comes, even the weather of others. One must take the weather as the good God sends it to us, even as he sends it to others, as he sends us the weather of others.
Jeannette
— Their father was killed by the Burgundians. Alas, alas, it is not even by the English. One has no need of the English. To massacre the French. Their mother, alas their mother. The two of them escaped they do not know how. They will never know it. It is the eldest who told me all that, when he had finished eating. Before setting out again.
A brief silence.
There they are set out again on the famished road. In the dust, in the mud, in the hunger. In the future, in distress, in the anxiety of the future. Who will give them, my God who will give them their daily bread. But on the contrary they will walk in distress and in the hunger of each day. They were still weeping while laughing. And they were laughing while weeping, like a ray of sunshine right through their tears. Their big forgotten tears slid and fell on their bread. It was like the last drops of rain when the sun has come back. They ate upon their bread, spread like butter, the rest of their tears. What do our efforts of a day matter? what do our charities matter? I cannot however give always. I cannot give everything. I cannot give to everybody. I cannot however make the passersby eat all my father’s bread. And even then, would it show? in the mass of the starving. She insensibly ceases to spin. For one wounded man whom we tend by chance, for one child to whom we give to eat, tireless war makes them by hundreds, war does, and every day, the wounded, the sick, and the abandoned. All our efforts are vain; our charities are vain. War is the stronger at making suffering. Ah! cursed be it! and cursed those who brought it upon the land of France.
She has completely stopped spinning. A silence.
We may try as we will, we may try as we will, they will always go faster than we, they will always do more than we, more than we. Only a tinderbox is needed to burn a farm. It takes, it has taken years to build it. It is not difficult; it is not clever. It takes months and months, it has taken work and work to push up a harvest. And only a tinderbox is needed to set a harvest ablaze. It takes years and years to make a man grow, it has taken bread and bread to feed him, and work and work and labors and labors of every sort. And one blow suffices to kill a man. A sword stroke, and that is it. To make a good Christian the plough must have worked twenty years. To undo a Christian the sword need work only a minute. It is always like that. It is in the nature of the plough to work twenty years. It is in the nature of the sword to work a minute; and to do more; to be the stronger. To finish it. So we, we shall always be the weaker. We shall always go slower, we shall always do less. We are the party of those who build. They are the party of those who tear down. We are the party of the plough. They are the party of the sword. We shall always be beaten. They will always have the upper hand over us, on top of us.
We may say what we will.
A silence.
For one wounded man dragging himself along the roads, for one man whom we pick up along the roads, for one child dragging at the roadside, how many does war not make of them, the wounded, the sick, and the abandoned, unhappy women, and abandoned children; and the dead, and so many unhappy ones who lose their souls. Those who kill lose their souls because they kill. And those who are killed lose their souls because they are killed. Those who are the stronger, those who kill lose their souls by the murder they commit. And those who are killed, the one who is the weaker, lose their souls by the murder they undergo, for seeing themselves weak and seeing themselves bruised, always the same weak ones, always the same unhappy ones, always the same beaten ones, always the same killed ones, then the unhappy despair of their salvation, for they despair of the goodness of God. And thus, on whatever side one turns, on both sides it is a game in which, however one plays, whatever one plays, it is always salvation that loses, and it is always perdition that wins. All is but ingratitude, all is but despair and perdition.
A silence.
And the eternal bread. He who lacks too much the daily bread has no more taste for the eternal bread, for the bread of Jesus Christ.
A silence.
Cursed be it, cursed of God; even; and cursed those who brought it upon the land of France; and those who brought it upon the land of France, must it be, my God, must it be that they too be cursed of thee. Must it be that we ask thee for curses, thy curses against them. And thy reprobation. Thy trade, thou my God, is blessing. When we ask thee for thy blessings, we make thee do thy trade. Thou wert made to pour out thy blessings like a rain, like a beneficent rain, like a soft, warm, agreeable rain, like a fecundating rain upon the earth, like a good rain, like an autumn rain upon the head, upon the heads of all thy children; together. Shall it be said, my God, shall it be said that now we shall ask thee for, that we shall have to ask thee for curses, thy curses, we all thy children, the ones against the others.
When we ask thee for curses, when we ask thee for thy reprobation, we do not make thee do thy trade, we make thee do the contrary of thy trade.
A silence.
My God, my God we do not make thee do thy trade.
A silence. She begins to spin again.
And then! what does it matter to her? my curses. I could spend my whole life cursing her, from morning to night, and the cities will be no less stormed, and the men-at-arms will none the less spur their horses into the venerable wheatfields.
A silence.
Sacred, sacred wheat, wheat that makes the bread, corn, ear, grain of the ear of wheat. Harvest of the wheat of the fields. Bread that wert served on the table of Our Lord. Wheat, bread that wert eaten by Our Lord himself, who on one day among all days wert eaten.
Wheat, sacred wheat that didst become the body of Jesus Christ, on one day among all days, and which every day art eaten being no longer thyself, but being the body of Jesus Christ.
A silence.
Wheat that art no longer but the aspects of wheat; bread that art no longer but the appearances of bread; bread that art no longer but the species of bread.
Bread that art no longer but the former bread.
A long silence.
And you vine, sister of wheat. Grain of the cluster of the vine. Grapes of the trellises. Vintage of the wine of the vines. Stocks and clusters of the vineyards. Vineyards of the slopes.
Wine that wert served on the table of Our Lord. Vine, wine that wert drunk by Our Lord himself, who on one day among all days wert drunk.
Vine, sacred vine, wine that wert changed into the blood of Jesus Christ, on one day among all days, and which every day at the hands of the priest art changed, being no longer thyself, but being the blood of Jesus Christ.
A silence.
Wine that art no longer but the aspects of wine; wine that art no longer but the appearances of wine; wine that art no longer but the species of wine.
Bread that wert changed into the body, wine that wert changed into the blood.
Bread that art no longer but the former bread, wine that art no longer but the former wine.
A silence.
Must it be, my God, that the blood of thy Son flowed in vain; that it flowed in vain once, and so many times.
Once, that once; and since then so many times.
Must it be, my God, that the body of thy Son was sacrificed in vain; that it was offered in vain once, and so many times.
Once, that once; and since then so many times.
Shall it be said that thou wilt abandon, that thou wilt have abandoned the Christendom of thy children.
All is full of war and of perdition. And it is war that makes perdition. Shall it be said that thou wilt abandon us to war.
A silence.
It is thee that we need and that one might see passing upon the earth the mark of thy hand.
Thou didst it in former times. Thou didst it for other peoples. Wilt thou not do it for this people of France.
For other peoples thou didst send saints. Thou didst even send warriors.
We are sinners, but we are Christians all the same. We are of the Christian people. We are of thy people of Christendom.
A silence.
Otherwise what does it matter to her, our curses. We could spend our whole life cursing her, from morning to night, and cursing her as one says one’s prayer. She has had the curse of Jesus and the wretch is none the worse for it, it is frightful. She has had upon her the curse, the reprobation of Jesus himself, Saint Peter and the sword of Malchus. Malchus and the sword of Saint Peter. So we by what right curse her, by what force, by what authority. It is a frightful thing that there is someone who has upon him the curse of Jesus and who walks as a conqueror upon all the roads of the world. Wilt thou at last deliver the world to this wretch?
A silence.
But we little ones by what power curse her, and by what efficacy. I should have done better to spin in peace. As long as there has not been someone to kill the wretch, to bruise the murder and to save this people, as long as there has not been someone to kill war, we shall be like children when one amuses oneself down below in the meadows making dikes and embankments with earth and with sand, with the mud of the Meuse. The Meuse always ends by passing over the top.
One day or another.
Hauviette
And it is for that that you want to see Madame Gervaise?
Jeannette
— …
Hauviette
— Madame Gervaise, who is not your friend…
Jeannette
— One is not the friend of a woman saint.
Hauviette, very violently:
— She is less of a saint than you.
Jeannette, blushing under the blow and closing her eyes a moment
— Be quiet, unhappy one, what dost thou dare to say? She is a daughter of God.
Hauviette
— I am a girl who sees clearly. One is not the friend of a daughter of God.
Jeannette
— Madame Gervaise is in the convent. No girl enters the convent unless God has called her by her name. There is a vocation. There must be a vocation. No girl enters the convent, no soul takes refuge in the convent, no soul, no body either, alas, unless God has summoned her, by her name, instructed, commanded, designated, by her name, led by the hand, and sometimes forced and taken for himself. There must be a vocation. God must have destined her. Named her. Then God has also revealed to them, no doubt, God must have told them of what we do not know, of what we others are ignorant of. God must have made them particular revelations.
Hauviette
— There are no particular revelations. There is only one revelation for everyone; and it is the revelation of God and of Our Lord Jesus Christ. Of God by himself and by Our Lord Jesus Christ. It is a revelation for all good Christians, for all Christians, even for the bad ones, and for sinners, for all good parishioners. For every man and every woman, for every person of the parish. One makes it known to the persons of the parish. That there is a promise of salvation… Between God and his creature. One makes it known. When one rings, when one rings the ban of harvest, one rings it for everyone, for all the harvesters. And after the harvest when one rings the ban of gleaning, one rings it for everyone, the ban of gleaning, for all the women gleaners, for all the poor women who go gleaning, gathering the ears in the fields, the ears that have fallen from the sheaves. When one rings the ban of vintage, one rings it for everyone, for all the vintagers. And after the vintage when one rings the ban of grape-gathering, one rings it for all the poor good women who go gathering the leftover grapes, for all the old good women who go gathering what remains on the wood, and what was not yet quite ripe at the time of the vintage. All that was still a little green, a little greenish. Now it has been fourteen centuries since the ban of salvation was rung. For all parishes. For all the persons of all parishes. It is the common revelation. The Christian revelation. The parochial revelation. The good God has called everyone, he has summoned everyone, he has named everyone. His Providence provides. His Providence foresees. His Providence watches over everyone, sees over everyone, sees for everyone. He has sight over everyone. He leads everyone by the hand. He has designated us all. We have all entered the convent of Christendom. We have all taken refuge in the great convent of Christendom. God has instructed us all, summoned us all, he has commanded us all. We are all of the house, of the same house, and it is God who leads the whole household. He has called us all by our name, which is our baptismal name. He has made the same revelation to us all, which is that we shall go to paradise if we live as good Christians. He has made the same vocation to us all, of going in our turn to paradise if we live as good Christians. There are none who communicate with God more closely than others. Every word of man and of woman, of father, of mother and of children arrives directly at the ears of God, every human prayer, every Christian prayer arrives, mounts directly to the ear of God. Every word of the lips, every word of the heart. And you others, the big ones, those who have begun, you others who have made your first communion, you see, you eat the good God directly, you nourish yourselves directly on God.
Joan lowers her head.
And there is nothing closer than touching. There is nothing closer than nourishment. Than the incorporation, than the incarnation of nourishment.
Prayer is the same for everyone. The sacraments are the same for everyone.
We too have been called by baptism, by our baptism, to be good Christian girls, to be Christians. And we have also been called to be good daughters, and to please our father and mother, and to take care of our little brothers and our little sisters, and everything that must be done in the holy day.
Jeannette
— Madame Gervaise is in the convent: the saints and the women saints who were founders. There have been so many great saints, and such great saints, at the foundation of the convents, that all their sanctity must redound, must be poured back particularly upon those who are called into their convents.
Hauviette
— Our Lord Jesus Christ is the first of the saints and the first of the founders. He is the greatest saint and the greatest founder. And all his sanctity redounds, is poured back upon all that is called Christian.
Upon all that is called Christian.
All his merit, all his sanctity is poured out eternally.
Jeannette
— The merits, the great merits of the women saints and of the saints who were founders must work more particularly for the daughters and the sons whom the vocation has made for them.
Hauviette
— The merits of Our Lord Jesus Christ, which are the greatest of merits, which are merits without end, work together for all Christendom.
For us all, for us others who are his daughters and his sons.
Who are his brothers and his sisters.
All his daughters and all his sons, all his brothers and all his sisters whom baptism has made for him.
Whom the vocation of baptism has made for him.
There is the communion of saints; and it begins at Jesus. He is inside. He is at the head. All the prayers, all the trials together, all the labors, all the merits, all the virtues together of Jesus and of all the other saints together, all the sanctities together work and pray for everyone together, for all Christendom, for the salvation of everyone. Together.
I am a little Frenchwoman who sees clearly; and I do not let it be said otherwise. I am a little Lorrainer who sees clearly.
Jeannette
— Madame Gervaise is in the convent; she must know why the good God allows there to be so much suffering.
So much suffering and so much perdition.
Hauviette
— Do you really know how Gervaise went to the convent?
Jeannette
— Yes: Madame Colette, who is a saint, passed through here. She converted Gervaise along with three of her friends.
Hauviette
— Her mother wept much in that time.
Jeannette, Jeannette, if we all did as much.
Our Lord Jesus Christ did not go to the convent. He did not live in a convent. He lived with his father and with his mother, like a boy. He was a carpenter; by trade. And afterward he did not withdraw. On the contrary he went for three years to do his public preaching.
Jeannette
— I wanted to see Madame Colette, but she has many souls to save. So I told my uncle to go and find Madame Gervaise at Nancy.
To go and fetch Madame Gervaise.
Hauviette
— Since she has been in the convent her mother is alone and frets and weeps and is pitiful to see.
Jeannette
— She came at once, and I expect her this morning.
Hauviette
— The last time there were soldiers, her mother fled into the island with us; only there was no one, with her, to carry her things; me, I could not, help her, carry her things, because there was mama, who needed me. My poor Jeannette, my poor Jeannette, so she was fleeing like a poor old good woman all alone. It was awful, it was awful. We wept over it. It tore the heart, it was a pity. But there was nothing one could do about it. She bowed her back, running. I see her still. It was shameful. One would have liked to lend her children. So, after that, then when she came back, to her home, when she went back into her house, she found nothing at all left of all that she had before: the soldiers had stolen everything, burned everything. We were ashamed for her.
She was fleeing like a poor old good woman of a grandmother who had no children.
A brief silence.
Truly Madame Gervaise has chosen her time badly to forsake the world and to save her soul…
A silence.
Listen, Jeannette. One must not do as she has done and flee to the convent to save one’s own soul. One must not save one’s soul as one saves a treasure.
Jeannette
— Alas, alas yet it is the greatest treasure.
It is the only treasure.
Hauviette
— One must then save it as one spends a treasure. By spending it. One must save oneself together. One must arrive together at the good God’s. One must present oneself together. One must not arrive to find the good God the ones without the others. We shall have to return all together to the house of our father. One must also think a little of the others; one must work a little, the ones for the others. What would he say to us if we arrived, if we came back the ones without the others.
Jeannette
— Then you insist on it? on our making, together, dikes and embankments of earth, with the earth and the mud of the river, with the sand, before this river of perdition?
Hauviette
— Come now, Jeannette, you must not get angry. You are right. The best, if one could, would be to kill war, as you say.
Jeannette
— The game is not equal. It took Jesus to make salvation, it took Jesus and all the saints.
Hauviette
— The other saints.
Jeannette
— Twenty centuries, I do not know how many centuries of prophets. Fourteen centuries of Christendom. It only takes an instant to damn a soul. It only takes an instant for a perdition.
It is always the same, the game is not equal. War makes war on peace. And peace naturally does not make war on war. Peace leaves peace to war. Peace kills itself by war. And war does not kill itself by peace. Since it did not kill itself by the peace of God, by the peace of Jesus Christ, how would it kill itself by the peace of men?
By a man’s peace.
Hauviette
— You are right, my big one, you are right. The best, if one could, would be to kill war, as you say. But to kill war, one must make war; to kill war, one needs a war chief; laughing as at the most enormous joke, as at the most improbable imagination; and is it we? is it? who will make war? is it not we who will ever be war chiefs? So we, while waiting for war to be killed, we must work, each on her own side, each as best she can, to keep safe all that is not yet spoiled.
Each on her own side.
Jeannette
— These soldiers, these soldiers who serve only to lose. Once, in the old days, there were people who served for everything. Sometimes they saved and sometimes they lost. But now they lose all the time. In the old days, there were trades, they each had their trade; and in the trades sometimes they served to lose, but sometimes they served to gain. And now one loses all the time. These men who make a trade of it. How can one imagine such misery, such pity. My God, my God, how canst thou, how dost thou permit it? Men who have a trade; and that trade is always to lose, is to make, is to operate the perdition of souls.
Hauviette
— Jeannette, listen to me well:
It is going on fifty years past, by the saying of the old people, that the soldier reaps at his fancy; it is going on fifty years past that the soldier crushes, or burns, or steals, as he pleases, the ripe harvest; and at the least that he tramples under his horses’ feet the ripe harvest. Well! after all that time, every year, in autumn, the good ploughmen, your father, mine, your two big brothers, the fathers of our friends, always the same, the same peasants, the same French peasants, plough with the same care the same lands, in the face of God, the lands down there, and sow them. That is what keeps everything safe. The houses demolished, one rebuilds them. The churches, even the churches, the parishes demolished, one rebuilds them. The parish has never been idle. And with all these entanglements the worship, the worship of God has never been idle. There is what keeps everything safe. They are good Christians. The mass has never been idle; nor vespers; nor any office; nor any service of God. And they have never failed to make their Easter, at least once a year. There is what keeps everything safe. The work. The work of the good God. They too would only have to become soldiers; it is not difficult: one receives fewer blows, since one gives them to others. Once soldiers, they too would only have to make the harvest without having done the sowing. But the good ploughmen love good ploughing and good sowing…
As if catching herself up:
Listen, I would not wish to say something foolish. But at bottom I believe well that they love just as much ploughing and sowing as harvesting. They love at bottom just as much to plough as to harvest and to sow as to gather, because all that is the work, the same work, the same sacred work in the face of God.
At bottom they do not want to harvest without having ploughed, to gather without having sown. That would not be right. That would not be in the order of the good God.
Every year they do at the same season the same task with the same valor, all along the year the same work with the same patience: there is what holds everything, what keeps everything safe; it is they who hold everything, they who keep everything safe, they who save all that can be saved; it is by them that everything is not yet dead, and the good God will surely end by blessing their harvests.
Me, I am like them. If I were at home busy spinning my distaff of wool, or it comes to the same if I were playing at knucklebones, because it would be the hour for playing; and if someone came to tell me, if someone came running: Hauviette, Hauviette, it is the hour of judgment, the hour of the last judgment, in half an hour the angel will begin to sound the trumpet…
Jeannette
— Unhappy one, unhappy one, of what do you dare to speak?
Hauviette
— I would go on spinning my wool and it comes back to the same I would go on playing at boquillons…
Jeannette
— Hauviette, Hauviette…
Hauviette
— Because the play of creatures is agreeable to God. The amusement of little girls, the innocence of little girls is agreeable to God. The innocence of children is the greatest glory of God. Everything one does in the day is agreeable to God, provided naturally that it be as it should be. Everything is to God, everything looks toward God, everything is done under the gaze of God; the whole day is to God. The whole prayer is to God, the whole work is to God; the whole play also is to God, when it is the hour to play. I am a little Frenchwoman, I am not afraid of God, because he is our father. My father does not frighten me. The morning prayer and the evening prayer, the morning Angelus and the evening Angelus, the three meals a day and the four-o’clock snack and the appetite at meals and the Benedicite before meals, the work between meals and the play when it is needed and the amusement when one can, to pray on rising because the day begins, to pray on going to bed because the day ends and the night begins, to ask before, to thank after, and always with good humor, it is for all that together and for all that one after another that we have been placed upon earth, it is all that together, all that one after another that makes the day of the good God. If presently they were to say to me: You know, Hauviette, it is for half an hour from now…
Jeannette
— My little Hauviette, my little Hauviette.
Hauviette
— I would go on spinning, if I were spinning, and playing, if I were playing. And on arriving I would say to the good God: Our father, who art in heaven, I am little Hauviette, of the parish of Domremy in Lorraine; at your service; of your parish of Domremy in your Lorraine of Christendom. You have called us back a little early, seeing that I was still only a very little girl. But you are a good father and you know what you are doing.
A silence.
I am a stubborn little Frenchwoman. They will never make me believe that one must be afraid of the good God; that one can be afraid of the good God. When I am on the road and my father calls me back, to make me come home, I am not afraid of my father.
A silence.
I am like them. We are their daughters. It takes less strength to fell a fellow than to fell an oak. It takes less trouble, it is easier to be a soldier than to be a woodcutter, it is easier to be a soldier than to be a peasant; it is easier, it is more agreeable, so it seems, at least so they say, one would say, it would seem that it is more agreeable to be the executioner than to be the victim. It is an extraordinary fact nevertheless, it is one of the greatest proofs, it is one of the greatest marks of the goodness of God that with all that there are still always as many peasants as soldiers, as many martyrs as executioners; as many peasants as are needed, as many martyrs, as many victims as are needed; always as many of the ones as of the others; it is the greatest proof there is of the presence of God among us, that no matter what one does, that one would say one does everything one can to make certain trades impossible, to discourage certain trades, and that there are always as many in those trades, as many as are needed to keep the world going. And that one cannot discourage the peasants, and that one cannot discourage the victims and the martyrs. And that the soldiers will weary before the peasants, and that the executioners will weary before the victims and the martyrs.
One believes, one might believe that it is better to be in the place of the executioner than in the place of the victim, in the place of the executioner than in the place of the martyr. One must believe that this is an error.
Jeannette
— It is now nearly fifty years past, Hauviette, that the good plowmen have prayed the good God for the good of the harvests; it is eight years past that I, little as I am, pray him with all my strength for the good of the harvests. Madame Gervaise is at the convent: she must know why the good God does not grant the good prayers.
Hauviette
— I am a good Christian. I am a good Frenchwoman. For the good God to bless the harvests, Jeannette, we must first have done the sowing; it is for that reason that we begin by doing it every year. Then, when the well-prepared earth is well sown, we make our prayers that the soldier may not come, that the new wheat may be born and grow into harvest. That the harvest may grow and the wheat abound. We, that is all we can do, that is all we have to do: the rest to the good God; we are in his hand; he is the master; he grants us according to his will.
Jeannette
— God grants us less and less, Hauviette: The travelers who pass bring no longer anything but bad news. The English hold the mount of monsieur saint Michel encircled, and behold the wheat, which was lacking for the bread, is going to be lacking for the sowing.
Hauviette
— It is the affair of the good God: our wheats are his. When I have done my task well and made my prayer well, he grants me according to his will; it is not for us, it is for no one to demand a reason of him. Truly, Jeannette, you must have a great suffering to dare thus to demand an accounting of the good God.
To demand a reason of him. To seek reasons of him.
You yourself work well. You work like everybody. You work better than I. You work better than anyone. You spin the wool; wool, the only useful thing. You make more of it than I. This morning you will have made more of it than I. I chatter and at the same time I do nothing. You chatter and at the same time you work.
Restless girl, insatiable soul, restless soul, if you believe what you say, then at least do not work.
Jeannette
— It is true: I have a great suffering at all this perdition; but I suffer yet another suffering, an unknown suffering, beyond all that you could imagine.
Hauviette
— You will tell it no doubt to madame Gervaise? your new suffering.
Jeannette
— I do not know.
A silence. Hauviette
— Farewell, my fair one, until presently. Showing the road that comes from the village. She will come by this way. Showing the road that goes off on the right along the hillside. I myself, I am going by this way. I have business this way. I do not know how it happens. I always have business elsewhere. I do not know. I have never met her, that person there. I always have business elsewhere. Elsewhere than where she is. There are such chances in existence. Also, it astonishes me, I have never met her.
This way. That way.
It is shameful. It is dreadful. Her mother now is angry with the good God. Her mother is jealous of the good God. Her mother makes reproaches to the good God. She reproaches the good God for having stolen her daughter from her. It is an impiety, an impiety such as had never been seen. Which has no name. Her mother said that, that the good God was a thief.
That he had stolen her daughter from her.
An impiety which has no name.
What has it all come to.
I would rather still think of your two nurslings. The good God will perhaps send them to find again, tomorrow, folk like you. Although you are right. Folk like you, if there are any, there are scarcely any. If there are any, there are not many.
Farewell. Appetite at meals. Appetite at prayers.
She goes out. Jeannette A long silence.
My God, my God, what is it then? In every time, alas, in all times, men have lost themselves; but for forty years alas they do nothing but that, they do nothing but lose themselves. What is it, my God, what is it. There were still some who saved themselves. There were some who escaped. But now, my God, who would answer that there are some who save themselves, who would answer that there are even some few, even only, even at least, who escape. It was the earth, alas, sometimes, often it was the earth that prepared for hell. Today it is no longer even that; it is no longer the earth that prepares for hell. It is hell itself overflowing onto the earth. What is it then, my God, what then is changed, what then is new. What have you done with this people, with your Christian people. Must it be that you sent your Son in vain and shall it be said that Jesus died in vain, your Son who died for us. Shall it be said that you will not have caused to cease the great pity that is in the kingdom of France.
A silence.
Jesus, Jesus, one day upon a mountain of that country you had pity on the people, you wept over that crowd, and that crowd was hungry and to nourish it, to appease the hunger of its body, to satisfy its carnal hunger you multiplied the fishes and the loaves.
Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, today your people is hungry and you do not satisfy your people. Today in this country your people of today, in your Lorraine of Christendom, in your France of Christendom, in your Christendom your people of Christendom is hungry. It lacks everything. It lacks the carnal bread. It lacks the spiritual bread. And to nourish it, to satisfy its one and its other hunger, to give it the bread of its body and the bread of its soul shall it be said that you would no longer be among us. Shall it be said that you no longer multiply, that you will not multiply the dried fishes and the loaves.
You will not weep over this multitude.
A silence. In vision.
Happy those who saw him pass in his country; happy those who saw him walk upon that earth; those who saw him walk upon the temporal lake; happy those who saw him raise Lazarus. When one thinks, my God, when one thinks that that happened only once. When one thinks, my God, when one thinks. When I think that he was a man like all the others, an ordinary man; apparently like all the others, apparently ordinary. He walked upon the road like an ordinary man; his feet pressed upon the ground; and he climbed the paths of the hillside. Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you have been more blessed than Rome. In truth, in truth, you have been more favored, Jerusalem, you have been more fortunate. A man like the others. And you Nazareth, little town, little city of Judea, you are happier than Reims and than Saint-Denis. And you Bethlehem, little town of Judah, the least of the towns of Judah, the most brilliant of the towns of Judah, you shall shine eternally also above all the towns of the earth, you shall shine eternally above all the towns of Christendom, eternally infinitely above our obscure towns, above our little Christian parishes. Who will ever know this little parish of Domremy. Who will ever even know the name of this little parish of Domremy. Who will even know that it ever existed.
And thou, Bethlehem, land of Judah, art not the least among the chief cities of Judah; for out of thee shall come the Ruler that shall feed Israel my people.
But you, Christian parishes, Lorraine parishes, French parishes, you have been less favored. The greatest of you, the most holy among you, the most full, the most stuffed with holiness among you, the greatest in holiness of you all have had nothing that approached, even from infinitely far off, what was given to that little lost town. You Chartres, unique city of the country of France, cathedral unique in the world, Chartres, diocese, city unique in the kingdom of France, Chartres, who are devoted to our Lady, Chartres who are devoted, dedicated, given to our Lady, Chartres who are consecrated, what are you, Chartres, great city, in comparison with that little town. And you too you are nothing, you yourself Saint-Michel, unique town, city unique in the world, unique in all Christendom, basilica to the world. And you Tours, city of the Loire, city of saint Martin, who were capital of the Gauls, who in this country, in the kingdom of France, were capital of the first Christianities. Metropolis, mother city, mother of the other cities. You all, what are you, great dioceses, great cities, great parishes, what are you beside that little town, at the price of that obscure town, which alas alas, is perhaps no longer even a parish, a Christian parish. And you, the towers of Notre-Dame, Paris, who were capital of the kingdom of France, doubly devoted, doubly dedicated, doubly given, consecrated doubly, both to you, our Lady, and to our great saint Geneviève; what are you. And you too, Orléans, you in the end you are nothing, Orléans city of the Loire, dedicated to that great saint Aignan. Great cities, illustrious cities, cities of Christendom, you have great saints and great patrons, the most holy, the greatest patrons of the world, and above all the saints you are patroned, you have the holy Virgin our Lady. You have given the day and you have given the exercise to great saints and eternally they shall watch over you, eternally they shall be your patrons, for eternally seated at the right hand they shall pray for you. Eternally they shall protect you, eternally they shall cover you with their prayers. Now you are nothing, Christian cities, great cities, residences of Christendom, chairs, cathedrals of holiness you are nothing. For all has been taken, once for all; and there is nothing more to take. All has been taken, all that counts, once for all, one day for eternally. And there is no longer anything left, my children, nothing to take, of what counts. For I tell you in truth this little lost town has taken all, one day, once in time; once in eternity; once for all, once for all times; one day, furtive, it has taken all for eternally everything that counts. And you, great cities, Christian cities, what remains to you. What are you. For you tarry in producing female and male saints, and during that time Jesus is the saint of that parish there, which is perhaps no longer, alas, a parish. Christian. Even a parish. Others have saint Loup and saint Gratien; others have saint Francis; others have our Lady herself. You other folk of the Picard country you have others; and others also you other folk of the country of Bourges. And you Nancy, nearby city, nearby parishes, you others, you folk of Nancy, you have the great saint Nicholas. You Toul, our diocese, you have what you have. With emphasis turning toward the church. And you my parish you have the great saint Remi. But where are you going, parishes. During that time Jesus, Jesus himself is the proper saint, the saint, the patron of that parish there. While you are tarrying. You tarry in producing female and male saints, ordinary female and male saints, my God, and during that time, while one was not on guard, without anyone in this country having been warned, while one was not paying attention to it, without our fathers and our grandfathers in this country having received any warning, and yet they were such fine folk, a little town came, which had already carried off everything. It has been given to that parish what has never been given to you, parishes of France, what never, eternally never will be given to any other parish. To any parish. While one was not expecting it. For it was done, it was done once for all, one day in time, in that country, once for all times, in eternity once for eternally, from all eternity for all eternity. And he came in the night like a thief. And never again shall it begin again. You tarry, parishes you tarry in producing the greatest female and male saints. And during that time, without warning, without forewarning anyone, a little parish of nothing at all had brought forth the saint of saints. At a single stroke, at the first stroke, it had arrived, it had brought forth the saint of saints. In a flash it had succeeded, it had done what shall never be done again, it had done, brought forth him who eternally shall never be brought forth again. And as you others, parishes, you have for patrons saint Crispin and saint Crispinian, all the same, Bethlehem, you have for patron saint Jesus. Others have saint Marceau and saint Donatien; and Rome has saint Peter. But you, Bethlehem, little obscure parish, little lost parish, you cunning one you have saint Jesus, and no one shall be able eternally ever to take him from you. For he is your own patron, as saint Ouen is the patron of Rouen. For it is that saint there whom you brought into the world; one day of the world that you brought into the world. You have produced that saint there, you have brought forth that saint there. And we others we are nothing but little folk.
And there shall be nothing but little folk from now on, since a parish came, which took all for itself.
Even before one had begun.
There shall be never again, eternally never, anything but little folk.
A silence.
Happy she who poured upon his feet the perfume of the amphora, she who poured upon his head the perfume of the alabaster vase, at Bethany, in the house of Simon, surnamed the leper; upon his feet, upon his real feet, upon his carnal body, upon his real head, upon the head of his body; happy all of them, men and women, happy pell-mell, sinners and saints. It was granted, my God, to the sinners of that time, to the sinners of that time and of that country what you refused, my God, what was not granted to the saints, what you did not grant to your saints of all times. It was given to the greatest sinners of then and of there what was not given to the greatest saints of the greatest centuries. What has not been given since. Never. To anyone. Happy she who with a handkerchief, with a real handkerchief, with a handkerchief for blowing the nose, with an imperishable handkerchief wiped that august face, his true face, his real face, his face of man, with a white handkerchief, white that perishable face; his pitiable face; and to see him then, in that state, the savior of the human race, to see him thus, him, the savior of the whole human race, what insensible heart would not have been softened, what eyes, what human eyes would not have shed tears; that face of sweat, all in sweat, all dirty, all dusty, all full of the dust of the roads, all full of the dust of the earth; the dust of his face, the common dust, the dust of everybody, the dust upon his face; stuck on by the sweat. Happy Magdalene, happy Veronica; happy saint Magdalene, happy saint Veronica, you are not saints like the others. All the male saints are saints, all the female saints are saints, but you you are not saints like the others. All the male saints, all the female saints are seated with Jesus at the right hand of the Father. All the male saints, all the female saints contemplate Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father. And there is, in heaven he has his body of man, his glorious human body, since he ascended thither, just as he was, on the day of the Ascension. But you others, you alone, you saw, you touched, you grasped that human body in its humanity, in our common humanity, walking and seated upon the common earth. You alone saw him upon the ground. You alone saw him twice and not once only; not once only, like all the others, in your eternity; not only the second time, which endures eternally; but a first time, a previous time, an earthly time; and it is that which was given only once, it is that which was not given to everybody. There are several classes of saints, there are two, and you are of the first class, and we all all the others, sinners and saints, we are all after only laborers of the eleventh hour; and the saints themselves, the other saints in heaven, they are, after, henceforth they are nothing but saints of the eleventh hour. For they see him only in eternity, where one has the time, and you you see him also in eternity; and you had seen him, you have seen him on earth, where one does not have the time. Unique story, earthly story, which passed so quickly, which shall not begin again. Frightful mystery, you have approached that frightful mystery. Cathedral cities, you have not seen that. You enclose in your cathedral churches centuries of prayer, centuries of sacraments, centuries of holiness, the holiness of a whole people, rising from a whole people, but you have not seen that. And they they saw it. All they saw it, without putting themselves out, those who were there and those who had come, those who had come on purpose and those who had not come on purpose; the shepherds, the magi, and the donkey, and the ox who breathed upon him to warm him. He was within reach of the voice, he was within reach of the hand, he was within reach of the eyes, of the gaze of the eyes, and that shall not begin again. Reims, you are the city of the coronation. You are therefore the most beautiful city of the kingdom of France. And there is no more beautiful ceremony in the world, there is in the world no ceremony as beautiful as the coronation of the king of France, in any country. But whence come you, city of Reims, what do you, cathedral of Reims. Who are you. A stable, in that lost town, a poor stable, in that poor little town of Bethlehem, a stable saw born a royalty that shall not perish, a simple stable, a royalty that shall not disappear in the centuries of centuries, never, a stable saw born a king who shall reign eternally. In that country. That is what they do in that country. And the king of France, who is the greatest king of the world, makes solemn entrances, he makes in Reims a solemn entrance, and nothing is more beautiful than the entrance of the king into Reims, nothing is more beautiful in the world, nothing in the world is so beautiful, in all the world; and twenty kings of France have made in Reims, in the cathedral of Reims twenty solemn entrances, twenty sumptuous entrances. But you Jerusalem you are happier; you are happy among all cities; you are infinitely greater, and happier, and more honored. You have received an infinitely greater honor. You are happy above the head of all cities, for he entered into your walls, mounted upon the foal of a she-ass; and that shall not begin again; and the people of that country threw palms and leaves, branches and flowers under the feet of the she-ass. Other parishes have seen born, have made born, have produced other saints. But those parishes there they saw born, they made born, they produced the great saint, the saint of saints: what an election. While you amuse yourselves, Christian parishes, in making female and male saints, a parish had risen early. It had risen before everybody. And it had produced the saint who shall not be made again. Happy he who found himself there, just at the moment when he had to carry his cross, help him carry his cross, a heavy cross, his real cross, that heavy cross of wood, of real wood, his cross of torment, a heavy well-built cross. As for everybody, for all the other condemned of the same torment. A man who was passing by there, no doubt. Ah he had certainly taken his time, that one, that man who was passing by there, just at that point, just then, just at that moment. That man who was passing just there. How many men since, infinities of men in the centuries of centuries would have wished to be there, in his place, to have passed, to have been passing there just at that moment. Just there. But there it is, it was too late, it was he who had passed, and in eternity, in the centuries of centuries he would not give his place to others; and they, the late-comers, they were forced to fall back upon other crosses, to exercise themselves, to do exercises, to fall back upon carrying other crosses. To manufacture for themselves, themselves, other crosses. To have manufactured for themselves. Artificially. It does not come back to the same. A man of Cyrene, named Simon, whom they compelled to carry the cross of Jesus. He no longer has need, today, to be compelled to have carried the cross of Jesus. Happy above all, happy he, and he too he would not give his place to another, he neither, happy he who however saw him only once. Happy he, happy above all, happy above all of them, the happiest of all, happy he who saw him in time, and who however saw him only once. Happy he who saw him in the temple; and afterwards; for that sufficed; was called back like a good servant. He was an old man of that country; a man who was nearing evening and who was touching evening, the last evening of his life. But he did not see his last evening set without having seen the eternal sun rise. Happy that man who took the child Jesus in his arms, who lifted him in his two hands, the little child Jesus, as one takes, as one lifts an ordinary child, a little child of an ordinary family of men; with his old tanned hands, with his old wrinkled hands, with his poor old dry and creased hands of an old man. With his two shrivelled hands. With his two parchment-like hands. And behold there was a man in Jerusalem, named Simeon, and this man, just and fearing (God), awaiting the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was in him. And he had received answer from the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death, until he had seen the Christ of the Lord.
And he came in the spirit into the temple. And as the child Jesus was entering there, led by his parents, that they might do for him according to the custom of the law;
And himself he took him in his arms, and blessed God, and said:
Now thou lettest thy servant depart, O Lord, according to thy word in peace.
Because mine eyes have seen thy salvation,
Which thou hast prepared before the face of all peoples;
A light for the revelation of the nations, and glory of thy people Israel.
And his father and his mother were in wonder at what was said of him.
Awaiting the consolation of Israel; and the consolation has come; and the consolation has not sufficed. The consolation has come, and the consolation has not consoled.
The consolation has not consoled Israel; and it has not consoled your Christendom either, O my God.
Awaiting the consolation of Israel; for fifty years, my God, for fourteen centuries, for fifty years we have awaited the consolation of your Christendom.
Awaiting the consolation of Israel; of the kingdom of Israel; until when, O my God, shall we await the consolation of the kingdom of France; the consolation of the great pity that is in the kingdom of France.
The consolation has come; and it has not consoled enough; it has not consoled sufficiently.
But he, this old man, this old man of that country, it is not known that he saw anything more afterwards. And happy he knew no more history. Happy, the happiest of all, he knew no other history of the earth.
He could boast, that one too, of having found himself in the right place. He had held, for he had held, in his feeble hands, the greatest dauphin of the world, the son of the greatest king; king himself, the son of the greatest king; king himself Jesus Christ; in his hands he had lifted up the king of kings, the greatest king of the world, king above kings, above all the kings of the world.
He had held in his hands the greatest royalty of the kingdom of the world.
And he knew no other history of the earth.
For at the evening of his life, at the evening of his day, at a single stroke, at the first stroke he had known the greatest history of the earth.
And also the greatest history of the heavens.
The greatest history of the world.
The greatest history of ever.
The only great history of ever.
The greatest history of everybody.
The only interesting history that ever happened.
Thus anyone whatever could approach you. And this old man, at the evening of his life, embraced you like an ordinary little child. He surely embraced you. As an old man, as old folk like to embrace children, the little ones, the very little children. But you, spire of Chartres, nave of Amiens, where are you going. What do you, who are you, whence come you. You are nothing. And you spire of Chartres and tombs of Saint-Denis, holinesses of the kingdom of France, you are nothing. And in that little country, in that little town, in that little parish was seen what was not seen at Château-Thierry; in that other little parish of that country, where there is perhaps not even a church, at present; today; was seen there what was never seen at Château-Thierry. Another parish had risen earlier. How then did they go about it, my God, the folk of that time and of that country, the folk of then, the folk of there. What then did they do for you, what then had they done for you the men of that time and of that country. What mystery, what frightful mystery. What frightful mystery. They had only to approach that frightful mystery. Those who found themselves just in time. Without doing anything for it they had, they have had what has been refused; perforce; since it took place only once; naturally it could only take place once. What has not been given to the greatest saints of other times and other countries. They had only to approach that frightful mystery. The last of that time and that country have had what the first of us, the most holy, the greatest saints among us shall eternally never have. What mystery, my God, what mystery. When one thinks, when one thinks, one had to be there, it sufficed to be born just there, in that time and in that country. My God, my God you have given to your executioners what was refused to so many of your martyrs. The Roman soldier who pierced your side had what so many of your saints, so many of your martyrs have not had. He had to touch you. He had to see you. He had on earth a glance of your mercy. He had on earth a glance of your own eyes. Happy those who drank the gaze of your eyes; happy those who ate the bread of your table; and Judas, even Judas could approach you. Happy those who drank the milk of your words. Happy those who ate, one day, one unique day, one day among all days, happy with a unique happiness, happy those who ate one day, one unique day, that holy Thursday, happy those who ate the bread of your body; you yourself consecrated by yourself; by a unique consecration; one day which shall therefore never begin again; when you yourself said the first mass; upon your own body; when you celebrated the first mass; when you consecrated yourself yourself; when of that bread, before the twelve, and before the twelfth, the thirteenth, you made your body; and when of that wine, you made your blood; that day when you were together the victim and the sacrificer, the same the victim and the sacrificer, the offering and the offertory, the bread and the bread-bearer, the wine and the cup-bearer; the bread and he who gives the bread; the wine and he who pours the wine; the flesh and the blood, the bread and the wine. That time when you were the priest and they were the faithful, that time when you were the priest officiating, sacrificing for the first time. That time when you were the invention of the priest, the first priest officiating, sacrificing for the first time. And you were all together the priest and the victim. That time when you made the first sacrifice. When you were the first sacrificed, the first host. The first victim. When one thinks, my God, when one thinks that you were there, that one had only to approach you, frightful mystery; and that one had only to approach that frightful mystery. No, when one thinks that it happened once. That this was seen upon the earth. That anyone whatever could touch you, visible shepherd, the goodwives, the children, the beggars of the roads. And that you spoke like a simple man who speaks. What then had they done to you, my God, those folk, to be honored with that honor, favored, fortunate, blessed, graced with that grace. And you Jews, people of Jews, people of the Jews, my God my God, what then had this people done to you; that you should have thus preferred it to all peoples; that you should have thus made it pass before all peoples; that you should have thus placed it above; above all peoples; above the head; above the head of all peoples. What then did they do for you, what then did he do for you to be your elect? That you should have thus filled it with that grace; that you should have thus preferred it to all the others, elected from among all the others above all the others. That you should have illustrated it with such a brilliance, with an eternal brilliance. That from century to century, and I count first the centuries of the earth, you should have taken in it, among it the lineage of the prophets, the race of the prophets. From century to century, from step to step, from generation to generation, from ascension to ascension the slow ascension, the lineage of the prophets, the race of the prophets. What people my God would not have esteemed itself happy, what people among so many peoples, what people among the innumerable peoples, to be your people; what people would not have wished to be in their place; chosen people; chosen race, what race would not have wished to be the chosen race; your race; chosen from among so many others; from among all races; from among the innumerable others; above the others; above the heads of all the innumerable others; what people would not have asked to be your people; what people would not have enjoyed being your people; chosen, with what election; at any price, my God, at any temporal price, were it at the price of that dispersion. You chose, you sorted, you took from among them, from ascension to ascension you took from among them the long lineage, the high, the rising lineage of the prophets; and like a summit the last of them all; the last of the prophets, the first of the saints; Jesus who was a Jew, a Jew among you; race who received the greatest grace; and that which was refused to all the Christian people; mystery of grace; chosen race; what was not given to the greatest saints; to the greatest saints of the Christian people you have had it; and not only on earth; but in heaven itself and so to speak even more in heaven; for you others, Christian saints, great saints of Christendom, in your eternity you contemplate Jesus only in his glory; and you others Jews, singular Jews, singular people, unique people, first people you others you considered him in his misery. You considered him once for all, the time that counted. And his misery was your misery. His own misery was your own misery. He was a Jew, a simple Jew, a Jew like you, a Jew among you. You knew him as one says of a man: I knew him back then. And during that time our ancestors, our pagan grandfathers, our peasant grandfathers, our fathers and the fathers of our fathers in this country continued to work the earth; they continued to work this country; everything continued as always, everything continued as if nothing were happening; they continued to work the vine and the wheat, but neither this vine nor this wheat had yet served any consecration; neither this bread nor this wine had yet been consecrated; the women continued to bake the bread; but it was a bread uniquely temporal, a bread of temporal wheat, a bread of the wheat of the earth; a bread uniquely for the hunger of the body; and the wine also was uniquely a wine of the vine of the earth; the girls kept the sheep, the girls continued to spin the wool; all innocent, but all pagan, all laborious Hauviette they were already working, they did not cease working. They continued. They were good folk, they were poor folk, but they did not know. They worked only with a temporal work. They worked only with a work of the earth. They did not know what was preparing. They did not suspect, the good folk, the good news that had come, that was coming in the country of the Jews. They did not suspect. And they were warned only a little time after. So we others too we are brothers of Jesus in our eternity. And in our time we were his brothers, we are his brothers in Adam, in our father Adam; we are brothers of Jesus in our humanity. But you, Jews, you were his brothers in his family itself. Brothers of his race and of the same lineage. Upon yourselves he shed unique tears. Upon yourselves he wept over this multitude. You have seen the color of his eyes; you have heard the sound of his words. Of the same lineage for eternally. You have heard the very sound of his voice. Like little brothers you nestled in the warmth, in the tepidness of his gaze. You sheltered yourselves, you covered yourselves under the shelter of the goodness of his gaze. Upon yourselves he had pity over this crowd. Jesus, Jesus, will you ever again be thus present to us. If you were there, God, all the same it would not happen so. It would never have happened so.
Madame Gervaise In vision to them both.
He is there.
He is there as on the first day.
He is there among us as on the day of his death.
Eternally he is there among us as much as on the first day.
Eternally every day.
He is there among us in all the days of his eternity.
His body, his same body hangs upon the same cross;
His eyes, his same eyes, tremble with the same tears;
His blood, his same blood, bleeds from the same wounds;
His heart, his same heart, bleeds with the same love.
The same sacrifice makes the same blood flow.
A parish has shone with an eternal brilliance. But all parishes shine eternally, for in all parishes there is the body of Jesus Christ.
The same sacrifice crucifies the same body, the same sacrifice makes the same blood flow.
The same sacrifice immolates the same flesh, the same sacrifice sheds the same blood.
The same sacrifice sacrifices the same flesh and the same blood.
It is the same story, exactly the same, eternally the same, which happened in that time and in that country and which happens every day in all the days of all eternity.
In all the parishes of all Christendom.
Whether it be in Lorraine and whether it be in France,
All the towns are brilliant before the face of God,
All the towns are Christian under the gaze of God.
Jews, you do not know your happiness; Israel, Israel, you do not know your happiness; but you also, Christians, you also do not know your happiness; your present happiness; which is the same happiness.
Your eternal happiness.
Israel, Israel, you do not know your greatness; but you also, Christians, you do not know your greatness; your present greatness; which is the same greatness.
Your eternal greatness.
Showing all the towns, the parishes, the bell-towers of the valley, Domremy, Maxey, Vaucouleurs, and in them and beyond them all the towns, all the parishes, all the bell-towers of Christendom.
All the towns are loved under the gaze of God,
All the towns are Christian, all the towns are sacred,
All the towns are to God under the gaze of God.
As if perceiving each other at last. Jeannette
— Good day, madame Gervaise.
Madame Gervaise
— Good day, my daughter. May Jesus the Savior save your soul forever.
Jeannette
— So be it, madame Gervaise. My uncle told you that I wanted to see you?
Madame Gervaise
— Yes, my daughter, and I thought that you were unhappy.
Jeannette
— Alas.
Madame Gervaise
— God leads us, my child, God leads us by the hand. We are in the hand of God. We do nothing to which God does not consent and which he does not will. It is God, it is God himself who this morning led me to you.
Jeannette
— So be it, madame Gervaise.
Madame Gervaise
— God led me to you because you are unhappy. They imagine here, in the parish, that you are happy in your life because you are a good Christian, because you are a good parishioner, because you are pious; because you have made your first communion well; because you go well to the mass and to vespers; because you go often to church; and because in the fields you kneel at the distant sound of the calm bells.
Jeannette
— Alas.
Madame Gervaise
— I know, I, that all that does not suffice. I thought that you were unhappy, you too, and it is for that reason that I came at once.
A silence.
I know. I know that you have consummated on the contrary all the sadness of a Christian soul. And it is an infinite sadness.
A silence.
I have passed through there. The saints, all the female and male saints have passed through there. It is the very condition, it is the hard condition, it is the hard law, it is the hard apprenticeship of holiness. I have passed through there too, I too, I unworthy. You pass through it in your turn. Each one his turn. Each one his hour. God works us when he wills. God works us each in his turn. You are not the first. You shall not be the last.
Jeannette Like an attack.
Abruptly.
— Do you know, madame Gervaise, that the soldiers everywhere go to the assault of the towns and force the churches?
Madame Gervaise At first as if in forced defense.
— I know it, my daughter.
Jeannette
— Do you know that they make their horses eat oats upon the venerable altar?
Madame Gervaise
— I know it, my daughter. And they have said that it made a good manger, a very convenient manger, and just at the right height for the head of the horses.
Jeannette
— And that they say horrors to the Holy Virgin, to our mother the Holy Virgin; and that they insult, and that they blaspheme Jesus on the cross.
And it is even said that once they slapped Jesus on the cross.
Madame Gervaise
— It is not the first slap he has received. And our sins slap him outrageously every day.
Our sins outrage him and slap him every day.
Jeannette
— Do you know, madame Gervaise, and may the good God forgive me forever for having dared to say these words to you, do you know that the soldiers drink in the very holy chalices the wine that makes them drunk?
Madame Gervaise
— I know it, my daughter.
Jeannette
— Must I, my God, must I tell you this again. Must I to finish…
Madame Gervaise
— … To consummate this distress …
Jeannette
Must I have to tell you this again? Do you know that they make a feast with the very holy consecrated hosts?
Madame Gervaise
— All the female saints, all the male saints have passed through there. We unworthy, we lowly, we little ones we pass through it. I have passed through it, you pass through it, we shall all pass through it. And yet we others we are little folk.
Jeannette
— The blood of Jesus, the vase, the chalice that holds the blood of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— They demolish houses; they demolish churches.
A house demolished, a house built; a house demolished, the same house rebuilt; a house demolished, another house built; an old house demolished we shall build, we shall always rebuild new houses; the stones of the earth shall never be lacking to us to build new houses, new earthly houses; and our arms shall never be lacking, our arms shall not be lacking to us to build temporal houses, to edify houses of this earth.
What matter, we shall always rebuild enough new houses.
We shall build enough temporal houses.
Jeannette
— The blood of Jesus, the blood of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— They demolish our houses; were they to demolish everything we have, if it please God, we shall have in the house of our father a house that the soldiers shall never demolish.
Jeannette
— The body of Jesus, the body of Jesus. That they profane the bread and the wine, the body and the blood of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— We have other houses than the houses we have. We have houses that the soldiers shall not reach.
A house that the soldiers shall not demolish.
We have other houses, we have other houses.
There are other houses than the house of our father. There is another father than our own father. God has prepared for us, Jesus has won for us other dwellings, Jesus has won for us eternal dwellings.
We have another father than the father we have.
Jeannette
— The body of Jesus, the sacred body of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— They demolish the churches. We shall rebuild some always. We shall always rebuild churches of stone.
There is another father than our father.
We shall always rebuild temporal churches. We shall always edify perishable churches.
But there is a Church they shall not reach. There is a Church of God they shall not reach. There is a Church in heaven, in the heaven of God. There is an eternal Church. Which they shall never reach.
The saints are won for always, the saints are saints for always, for eternally always. Nothing can any longer lose the saints. Jesus is won for always, Jesus is holy, he is Jesus for always, for eternally always. And in the heaven of God there is a body of Jesus that the fingers of sinful hands shall touch no more ever, eternally no more ever.
A body of Jesus that the fingers of sinful hands shall profane no more ever.
Jeannette
— The body of Jesus. To make serve sin itself the very body, the sacred body of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— There is another Church than all the churches (showing them) of the Meuse and of Lorraine, than Domremy and Maxey, than Vaucouleurs and Nancy, than Reims and than Rouen, than Paris and than Rome. There is a celestial Rome. There is a celestial Jerusalem. There is another church than all the churches of the earth. There is another Church than all the churches of Christendom itself. There is a Church that sinful hands shall not demolish, shall not defile eternally ever. There is another Church than all the churches of the earth of Christendom.
Jeannette
— Still when those Roman soldiers dared to touch your perishable body, your imperishable body, at least they did not know that you were the son of God. But these here, Christians, Christian soldiers, baptized in their parishes by the curés of their parishes by the care of their father and their mother assisted by their godfather and godmother, these here outrage you, knowing who you are; these here profane you, knowing who you are, profane your body. In truth, my God, they know not what to invent, they know not what evil to do; one now commits sins that one had never committed. One does not know what to invent.
Sins one could not suspect.
Madame Gervaise
— I know it, my daughter.
And I know that damnation goes like a rising tide in which souls are drowning.
And I know that your soul is sorrowful unto death, when you see the eternal, the growing eternal damnation of souls.
Jeannette
— Do you know, madame Gervaise, that we, who see all this happen before our eyes without doing anything at present but vain charities…
Madame Gervaise
— My child, my child, my child, charities are never vain.
Jeannette
— … and without wishing to kill the war…
Madame Gervaise
— My child, my poor child, my child, my little child, you do not speak like a little girl, you do not speak like a little Christian.
Above all do not put yourself in anger. That too is a great sin.
Jeannette
— … without doing anything at present but vain charities, since we do not wish to kill the war, we are accomplices of all this? We who let the soldiers do, do you know that, we too, we are the tormentors of bodies and the damners of souls. We too, we ourselves, we slap Jesus on the cross. We too, we ourselves we profane the imperishable body of Jesus.
A silence.
Accomplice, accomplice, it is the same as author. We are the accomplices of it, we are the authors of it. Accomplice, accomplice, that is as much as to say author.
He who lets it be done is like he who has it done. It is all one. It goes together. And he who lets it be done and he who has it done together it is like he who does, it is as much as he who does. As if rising up. It is worse than he who does. For he who does, he has at least the courage to do. He who commits a crime, he has at least the courage to commit it. And when one lets him do, there is the same crime; it is the same crime; and there is the cowardice on top. There is the cowardice in addition.
There is everywhere an infinite cowardice.
Accomplice, accomplice, it is worse than author, infinitely worse.
Madame Gervaise
— I know, my daughter, that you are, all of you, the damners of souls. And I know that your soul is sorrowful unto death, to know that it is accomplice of the universal Evil; accomplice and author, you confess it; accomplice and author of universal Evil; accomplice and author of Sin; accomplice and author of this universal perdition,
and you feel yourself desperately cowardly.
A silence.
But that is nothing yet.
It is nothing.
A long silence.
My daughter, forgive me the words I am going to dare to say to you; I am a poor woman; I have seen so much also, in my childhood, when I was a little girl. Like you. As you are. They believe they have said everything when they have said: She has gone to the convent. One never speaks enough. And one never speaks soon enough. One never says enough to one’s friends. Nor soon enough. With all the more reason to one’s confidants. I would rather offend you, and serve you; before God; than not offend you, and betray you. I must offend you, if need be. Forgive me the words I am going to dare to say to you; afterwards, I will go away, if you wish it, without seeing you ever again.
A brief silence.
I know also your new suffering; I know the suffering that appears to you frightful beyond all suffering, frightful beyond all imagination even; why you summoned me; why I have come.
A brief silence.
To despise oneself, one would still despise oneself, one would get used to it, one would grow accustomed to it; there are, there exist worse habits: You have known that all those are cowards, whom you had loved, … whom you have loved…
A movement of Jeannette.
Whom you love, whom you love, whom you love, my daughter, my poor child.
This movement of revolt falls.
You are right, my daughter, my poor child.
My child, my child, one always loves. But to love those whom one despises, that is a great good. But to despise those whom one loves, that is the greatest suffering there is.
Those whom one would wish to honor, whom one must honor, whom one wishes to honor. Whom one honors. All the same.
It is the greatest baseness and the greatest indignity.
You have known that all those are cowards, whom you had loved; you have known that your father is a coward; that your mother is a coward;
Jeannette lowers her head.
Your father, that great strong man who fears nothing, save God, who is so good a Christian; your mother, who is so good a Christian, who has made the pilgrimages; and your brothers, and your big sister, and your friends:
In an evocation:
I too have had friends.
I too had friends.
Setting off again.
Mengette, whom I saw this morning; Hauviette, who does not want to see me;
Shaking her head at a gesture of Jeannette.
I know, I know. Dryly, and at the same time very sadly. No, she does not want to. You have known that they are cowards all of them, and accomplices of universal Evil; accomplices, authors of Sin; accomplices, authors of this universal perdition; and that they are therefore responsible for it. Accountable. Responsible for the souls who damn themselves to these souls themselves, and responsible to God, for the souls are his, and you let them damn themselves without doing anything, and you damn yourselves to let thus the souls of God damn themselves.
A silence.
Thus it is thus an enumeration and an unrolling without end of damnations, an explanation of damnations without end; a chain, a frightful dance of perditions; one drags the other along, infallibly; one drags the other into an infernal round; one holds the other by the hand like a frightful sister; and they hold each other with a hand that shall never let go. One holds the other, the other holds the one, one clings to the other and one reinforces the other. Every day new inventions. Every day unknown imaginations. New damnations, redoublings of damnation the circles of hell unroll below the circles.
A silence.
You lie.
Since you have known that, you are a liar: A liar to your father, a liar to your mother, to your brothers, to your big sister, to your friends, for you make a pretense of loving them, and you cannot love them. And yet you love them all the same. A liar to yourself, for you wish to make yourself believe that you love them, and you cannot love them. And yet you love them all the same.
You do not love them and yet you love them.
You love them all the same. With what love. How can you love them. With a lying love, with a love betrayed and which betrays itself, which perpetually betrays itself, with a falsified love. All uprightness is now warped, all uprightness is now twisted. You lie by the sound of your voice. You lie by the gaze of your eyes. Everything is forever falsified in your soul. And everything is forever falsified in your life: falsified the filial love and falsified the fraternal love; the filial love, the first of goods; after the goods of God; among the goods of God; the fraternal love, the first of goods; after the goods of God; among the goods of God; friendship, the first of goods; after the goods of God; among the goods of God; falsified friendship; falsified your family loves; falsified your loves of friendship, falsified your friendships; falsified all your sentiments: Your entire life is lying and false. And you live in your house, among your own, and you feel yourself more irreparably alone and unhappy than a child without a mother.
A great silence.
A hope remained to you. You were coming on to your twelfth year. In this great distress you awaited at least, you said to yourself that it would soon end, for you were approaching the communication of the body of Our-Lord, you were touching upon the communication of the body of Our-Lord, and the communication of the body of Our-Lord heals all ills.
A great silence.
The hour has come, the awaited hour; the awaited hour, the hour prepared from all eternity.
The hour you had awaited for days and days, the hour you had awaited since your baptism, the hour you had awaited from all eternity. Since your eternity.
The day has come, the great day, you have received the communication of the body of Our-Lord.
In your turn, after thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of others, after hundreds and thousands of thousands of Christian women; in your turn, Christian and parishioner, as so many and so many Christian women, as so many and so many parishioners, as so many even of the female saints, in your turn you have received the body of Our-Lord-Jesus-Christ, the same body of Our-Lord-Jesus-Christ.
After fourteen centuries in your turn to receive. In your turn to approach.
In your turn you received for the first time the body of Our-Lord-Jesus-Christ.
Awaited day. Day of an infinite mourning, for the communication of the body of Our-Lord heals all ills; and you found yourself in the evening; and you were alone; and you had received the same body, the same that the female and male saints have received; and the communication of the body of Our-Lord heals all ills; and God had come; and in the evening you found yourself alone in the same situation; but it was not the same, it was infinitely worse; you found yourself in the same suffering; it was not the same, it was infinitely worse, it had become infinite; you found yourself in the same distress; the same, the same, alas; but it was not the same; it had become infinitely worse, it had become infinite; it had become other; for the greatest physician of the world had passed by, and he had done nothing about it.
The same solitude. In the same solitude. And it was no longer the same.
It was no longer before. It was after. At the evening of your day. Before it was a great distress. But it was only a great distress that awaited the remedy. After it was a great distress that no longer awaited the remedy. It was a great distress where the remedy had passed by. In vain. The same distress: another distress, infinitely other, infinitely worse; infinitely tested, infinitely verified; become infinite; since the only remedy of the world had passed over it; and had done nothing about it.
Of the same, beginning from the same, remaining the same, become other, infinitely other. Before, after.
For the evening hour is infinitely other than the same hour of the morning.
Abruptly, almost brutally:
In short you had missed your first communion.
A silence. Somberly:
It is almost worse than if one missed the day of one’s judgment and the day of one’s death.
Jeannette A long silence.
— It is true.
It is true that my soul is sorrowful unto death; I am in a distress; I would never have believed that the death of my soul could be so sorrowful.
All those whom I loved are absent from myself.
Madame Gervaise
— Even God. That is it, all.
Jeannette
— All those whom I loved are absent from me.
Madame Gervaise
— Damnation is that; that is perdition itself.
Jeannette
— All those whom I love are absent from me: that is what has killed me without remedy …
Madame Gervaise
— The only remedy there is in the world has come, and the only physician; and the remedy has done nothing to you; the physician has done nothing to you; and the evening of that day you found yourself as in the morning …
Jeannette
— Alas.
Madame Gervaise
— Your life is a perpetual lie. And yet you had blessed that morning that day which was rising; you had blessed that sun which was rising over the slopes (showing them opposite) over the Lorraine slopes, over the slopes of the Meuse.
Jeannette
— Alas, alas.
Madame Gervaise
— The creature sun upon the creature Meuse.
Jeannette
— All those whom I love are absent from me: that is what has killed me without remedy; and I feel soon to come my human death.
I shall not go far. I can no longer go. My life is all hollow within me.
Madame Gervaise
— Woe to the heart that the body of Jesus has not filled; woe to the heart that the body of Jesus has not satisfied.
Jeannette
— I can no more, I can no more go.
— O may it come at the earliest, my God, my human death.
O my God, I have pity on our human life where those we love are forever absent.
Madame Gervaise
— Child! have pity on perdition; child, have pity on the infernal life where the cursed damned, where the lost damned have the worst suffering: that God himself is absent from their eternity.
Jeannette
— O if it must be, to save from the eternal flame
The bodies of the damned dead maddened with suffering,
To abandon my body to the eternal flame,
My God, give my body to the eternal flame;
My body, my poor body, to that flame which shall never be quenched.
My body, take my body for that flame.
My puny body.
My body which is worth so little, which counts for so little.
Which does not weigh heavy.
My poor body which is of such little price.
A silence.
And if it must be, to save from the eternal Absence
The souls of the damned maddened by the Absence,
To abandon my soul to the eternal Absence,
Let my soul go away into the eternal Absence.
My soul to that absence which shall never be quenched.
Madame Gervaise
— Be silent, my sister: you have blasphemed: God, in his infinite mercy, has willed that human suffering should serve to save souls; I say human suffering; earthly suffering; militant suffering; not, doubtless, suffering suffering; certainly not, in no way assuredly the infernal suffering.
As if crying out against an impossibility;
against an evidence:
Then they would not be lost, if their suffering were not lost. Then they would have the same suffering as we, it would be the same suffering, as we. Then they would be like us.
They would have grace.
Now they are not like us. There is a difference. It is infinite. There is, there has been the judgment.
Otherwise they would be like us. There are, there can be only two sorts, there can be only two races of suffering: the suffering which is not lost, and the suffering which is lost. Of the suffering which is not lost we are, together with Jesus Christ; our suffering is of the same sort, it is of the same race as the suffering of Jesus Christ; our suffering is never lost, when we will it.
Of the suffering which is not lost we all are, when we will it, from Jesus down to the last of Christians, when we will it.
From Jesus himself down to the last of sinners.
There is, elsewhere there is a suffering which is lost; which is wholly lost; which is always lost; even though one would not; whatever one will; whatever they will; whatever they will eternally.
Whatever they do. Eternally whatever they do.
That is hell. Otherwise there would be no hell. It would be the same thing as us; it would be the same thing everywhere.
In all creation.
If their suffering could serve, my child, my poor child, they would be like us; they would be us; there would not be, there would never have been a judgment. If their suffering could serve, as soon as a suffering can serve, it pairs itself, it is akin, it binds itself to the suffering of Jesus Christ. It becomes of the same race. It becomes, at once it becomes of the same sort, of the same race, of the same family as the suffering of Jesus Christ.
It becomes the sister of the suffering of Jesus.
It becomes suffering in communion.
There would be no difference.
If their suffering served, my child, if it could serve, but then they would be in the communion.
Now they are not in the communion.
Every suffering that can serve, every suffering that serves is sister to the suffering of Jesus Christ; it is daughter of the suffering of God; it is the same as the suffering of Jesus Christ.
There would have been no judgment.
There is, elsewhere there is a suffering which does not serve, which eternally does not serve. Which is always vain, empty, which is always hollow, always useless, always sterile, always not called, therefore always not chosen, all, always, eternally all, eternally always, whatever they will.
Whatever they do. Whatever they do eternally.
Whatever there be.
Learn, my child, learn what hell is.
There is the mark, there is the distinction, there is the difference. It is infinite.
Otherwise, if they served, they would be like us. They would be as happy as we. They would be like Jesus on the cross. But we alone have the right to be like Jesus on the cross. We alone have the right to be in the image and the likeness, in the imitation of Jesus, to suffer in the image and likeness; in the imitation of Jesus. The others, the wretched, do not even have the right to be on the cross.
Too late, too late, afterwards it is too late.
There is on earth, and that is all. Afterwards it is no longer on earth.
There is the suffering of upon earth, and afterwards that is all.
Otherwise they would not be dead, they would not be lost, they would not be damned, they would not be judged.
They would be men like us; they would be living, earthly; they would be living beings; they would be before the judgment. They would not be after.
A silence.
My daughter, my daughter, there are many Churches; within the Church. But there is only one. There is only one Church. There are several Churches. There is the militant, where we are. There is the suffering, where we shall avoid being; if it please God. There is the triumphant, where we must ask to be. If it please God. But there is not an infernal Church.
There is no Church of hell.
It is senseless. It is an absurd imagination. It is inconceivable.
All three are living Churches; there is not, there cannot be a dead Church.
The Church is essentially, substantially living. She receives from God perpetually a life, Jesus promised her an eternal life. She is naturally, supernaturally living. There is not, there cannot be a dead Church.
If their suffering could serve, served, they would be a Church, they would be in the Church.
Militant, suffering, triumphant, all three living, there is not, there cannot be a dead Church.
A silence.
There is the Church militant; we are of it; it is the Church of the soldiers of a certain war; we are of it; everyone passes through it, everyone has passed through it; we know what we have to do there.
We pass through it. Everyone there does a service, a certain time of service.
A service which one does not begin again.
One does not re-enlist.
Afterwards we are divided.
There is the Church suffering. We must endeavor, we must ask not to be of it. Such is the law; such is the rule. For them, for them usefully we can, we must multiply our work, our prayers, our sufferings. Our merits, if it be permitted to steal that word from Jesus Christ. From the sole merits. From the merits of Jesus Christ. There may be our fathers and the fathers of our fathers. God have their souls. To work for them, to pray for them, to suffer for them. To merit for them. Such is the law; such is the rule. And there is no need to ask it of us; there is no need to command it of us. Neither to force us to it nor even to engage us to it. It is our own movement, our own proper movement; it is our love itself; it is the communion itself.
It is the proper movement, the natural movement of our love.
Of our human love, of our family love, of our filial love.
There is the Church triumphant. We must endeavor to be of it. There is no hiding from it. There is no playing the modest. We must endeavor, we must ask to be of it. Such is the law; such is the rule. Common. We must pray to them, and meanwhile we must pray to them for the others and for ourselves, there is no need to hide from it, to pray to them, for the others of the suffering and for the others of the militant, for the others of the earth and for us and for the others elsewhere, to ask of them their intercession, to ask of them to intercede for the others and for us, for all those of the suffering and for all those of the militant. To be with them later on. Among them. To be with them as they. It is not only the law and the rule. It is also our movement itself. It is also our love itself. It is also the communion itself. It is our own movement.
It is the proper movement, the natural movement of our love. The movement of our charity.
Of our human love, of our family love, of our filial love. Of our charity.
And there is yet this difference. And it is capital. And it is everything. That those of the suffering are sure of going there. And that we are sure of nothing. Since we are beforehand.
Of nothing at all.
Since we are not yet decided.
Not yet directed.
Separated.
Set forth toward one of the three paths.
Upon one of the three paths.
Upon one of the two roads.
Such is the communion, such is the life of the three living Churches. But there is no dead Church, there is not a Church that would not commune.
That would not be a Church, that therefore would not be a Church. There is not a dead Church.
A silence.
My child, my little girl, the good God has made frames. We must work, we must pray, we must suffer within the frames that the good God has made for us. He is willing to accept our sufferings from here below to save the souls in danger. But he did not will that infernal suffering should serve to save souls; he would not accept, to save the souls in danger, our sufferings from down there. There is no dead Church.
Jeannette Simply:
— Then there is so much lost suffering.
Madame Gervaise
— Wretched, wretched child, how you speak.
Jeannette
— In creation there is so much created suffering that is lost.
Madame Gervaise
— It is not a question of suffering. If it were only a question of suffering, who would not suffer. Who does not suffer.
A silence.
There is a useful suffering, and a useless suffering. There is a fruitful suffering, and an unfruitful suffering.
A silence.
That is why our master of all …
Jeannette
— Our Lord, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
Madame Gervaise
— Our master of mastery, of every mastery, of one and the other mastery; our master of lordship and our master of teaching; our master of domination and our master of apprenticeship.
Jeannette
— Our Lord, Our Lord Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
— He must have known, he. It was his trade. To save. It was his office. He must have known. He is our master at saving. That is why our master of all, the son of man learned to give his suffering, willed to give to save our souls every suffering, valid, even unto the valid suffering of temptation, but he never went so far as to give the very vain suffering of sin. The Savior was willing to give all human suffering; it was in the contract, it was in the pact. He had made himself man. His suffering also had made itself human, wholly human. But he did not will to damn himself; and it is senseless, it is inconceivable, it is absurd; it would be a blasphemy, to commit an infinite blasphemy even to have this imagination; it would be to commit an unheard-of sacrilege; for he knew that his infernal suffering, even his own, that an infernal suffering of his own could not serve to save us.
No, it is mad, to have this thought.
Even to have this thought. Even to see it pass merely in thought.
It is a great impiety. It is a great temptation. It is more than an impiety.
It is an incredible temptation.
A frightful blasphemy.
Jeannette
— Can it be that there is so much lost suffering.
Madame Gervaise
— It is a mystery, child, like an avowal: the greatest mystery of creation. It is a greater mystery than the Incarnation itself and than the Redemption, than the mystery of the Incarnation and than the mystery of the Redemption. For the Passion of Jesus, at least one sees what good that serves. And all the Incarnation is lit up by all the Redemption.
Jeannette
— If then it must be, to save from the eternal flame
The bodies of the damned dead maddened with suffering,
To leave my body long to human suffering,
My God, keep my body to human suffering;
And if it must be, to save from the eternal Absence
The souls of the damned maddened by the Absence,
To leave my soul long to human suffering,
Let it remain living in human suffering.
Madame Gervaise
— Be silent, my sister: you have blasphemed:
For if the son of man, at his supreme hour,
Cried out more than a damned soul the frightful anguish,
A clamor that rang false like a divine blasphemy,
It is because the Son of God knew.
One wonders why he would have uttered that frightful cry. Otherwise one wonders.
All the texts are formal, he uttered at that moment a frightful cry.
Then one wonders why he would have uttered, at that moment, that frightful cry.
It was the contrary. He must have been content.
It was finished.
It was done.
All was consummated.
His passion was finished; his incarnation was supposedly finished; done; his passion was consummated; done; the redemption was consummated. Done.
There was only that formality (for him) of death.
The redemption was finished and crowned;
crowned with thorns, the supreme crown.
It was at that moment that he must; that he ought to have been happy.
O most beloved son who was finding his father again;
Son of predilection who was going back up to the heavens;
Son among all sons who was going home to his father;
Prodigal child, prodigal son of his blood;
O most beloved son who was going up toward his father.
One wonders why he would have cried out at that moment. He had just begun to finish.
He had accomplished his time of humanity;
He was leaving the prison for the sojourn of glory;
He was going home to the house of his father.
Like a traveler at the evening of the journey,
He had accomplished his journey of earth;
He had consummated his journey of Jerusalem.
Like a weary traveler at the evening of his journey,
He saw the house.
And like a reaper at the evening of his day,
Into the two hands of his father he was pouring his wages;
Like a weary reaper at the evening of his harvest,
Into the two hands of his father he was pouring his wages,
The souls of the just whom he had ransomed,
The wages he had earned so hardly.
The souls of the saints whom he had sanctified.
The souls of the just whom he had justified.
And the souls of the sinners whom he had justified with one and the other hand.
Whom he had gathered up like a fallen ear of grain.
Whom he had justified by his merits.
The souls of the just whom he had earned like a day laborer.
Like a poor day-worker who works in the farms.
Like a poor workman who hurries to work.
All that he had amassed.
All that he had been able to gather up of souls by working well.
A full armful.
All that he could hold in his two hands.
By not wasting his time.
Because it was his master’s time.
His father’s, who was his master.
All that he could hold in his arms.
In his eternal arms.
The souls of the just whom he had perfumed with his virtues.
A full sheaf, a full potful; a full sheaving,
a full armful, a full bundleful of souls.
As much as he could hold in his two hands.
As much as he could hold in his two arms.
He was like a son at the evening of his day;
His father was waiting for him to embrace him at last;
An eternal kiss would wash his pure flank;
A paternal kiss would wash his pure brow;
An eternal kiss from his father would wash his open wounds,
Would refresh his open wounds,
And his head, and his flank, and his feet, and his hands.
An eternal spring,
An eternal pure water awaited his open wounds.
An eternal kiss would come down upon his flank;
The paternal kiss would descend upon his brow.
He was leaving the earthly house for the heavenly house;
The temporal house for the eternal house.
He was therefore going to enter again into his eternity.
The task was finished and his work was done.
He had accomplished his time of humanity.
The angels were waiting for him to celebrate his feast.
The angels were waiting for him to wash his open wounds.
The angels were waiting for him to bathe his open wounds.
To dab his wounds.
To make him a dressing.
The angels were waiting for him to wash his wounds.
The angels were waiting for him to bathe his wounds.
To dab his open wounds.
Five dressings for the five Wounds.
With very fine linen.
Of linen.
But a little worn.
Because it is softer.
An eternal spring to bathe his wounds.
The angels were waiting for him on his coming out of our hands
To acclaim his name and sing to him his glory;
To wash his flank; to wash his hands;
The angels were waiting to bathe, to wash his wounds;
And the blood of his hands, and the blood of his feet;
And the nails of his hands, and the nails of his feet.
As he had washed the feet of his disciples.
So the angels would wash his feet.
The feet of the master.
And not only the feet.
But as Peter had asked.
Simon Peter.
Not only the feet, but also the hands and the head.
But when he had washed the feet of his disciples.
It was in a well-closed room.
Quite tranquil.
In the room of the supper.
Still very tranquil and very closed.
And now it would be in heaven.
Now it would be in heaven.
Henceforth.
The spirits awaited him after the death of bodies;
And the pure spirits pure after the carnal bodies.
And the fine pure spirits after carnal death, after gross death.
And the fine pure spirits after the gross bodies.
Singular mystery.
The spirits were waiting for him to wash his body.
As if they knew about bodies.
As if they knew what a body is.
As if it concerned them.
Singular mystery.
One sees clearly that it was his own body.
His seat awaited him at the right hand of the father.
He was the dauphin going up toward the king.
As he was about to enter again into his eternity,
On the point of entering again into his eternity,
It is then, all the texts agree, the texts are
formal, it is then that he uttered that frightful clamor.
And marching again in his eternity.
After years and years, after centuries and
centuries a single act.
Prepared the house of maternal glory.
After a long journey was entering his house.
After so much battle an eternal peace;
After so much war an eternal victory;
After so much misery an eternal glory;
After so much baseness an eternal rising;
After so much contestation a reign uncontested.
You understand. It was finished. He was going home. He was going back home. He had only to go home. He was going away from here. He saw again from afar the house of his father. He also saw again hereabouts.
The other house, the house of his foster father.
He saw again the humble cradle of his childhood,
Where his body was laid for the first time;
The swaddling clothes on the straw and the ox and the belly
Of the ass and the gifts; the shepherds and the kings.
Jeannette
— He was born in Bethlehem in a poor stable.
Madame Gervaise
— The gifts the shepherds and the kings had brought him.
He saw again the humble cradle of Bethlehem
Where his body was laid for the first time;
The gifts the shepherds and the kings had made him, were making him.
Bethlehem, Bethlehem, and thou Jerusalem.
Life begun at Bethlehem and finished at Jerusalem.
Life comprised between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
Life inscribed between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.
He saw again the humble cradle of his childhood.
Life begun at Bethlehem and which does not end at Jerusalem.
The swaddling clothes on the straw awaited the washing;
Another set of swaddling clothes was ready for the change.
The prostrate shepherds presented wool.
Wool from their sheep, my child; wool from the sheep of that time. Wool like the wool we spin.
Jeannette
— Wool like this.
Madame Gervaise
— The magi kings presented gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Gold as to their King.
Jeannette
— Frankincense as to their God.
Madame Gervaise
— Myrrh as to a mortal man.
Jeannette
— Who one day would be embalmed.
Madame Gervaise
— The magi kings Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar.
Jeannette
— Caspar and Balthazar and Melchior the magi kings.
Madame Gervaise
— All this came to pass under the brightness of the heavens;
The angels in the night had formed choirs.
The angels in the night sang like flowers.
Above the shepherds, above the magi kings
The angels in the night sang eternally.
Beneath the goodness, beneath the youth, beneath the eternity of the heavens.
Of the firmament which he called heaven.
Like flowers of song, like flowers of hymn,
like flowers of prayer, like flowers of thanksgiving.
Like a flowering, like a foliage, like
a fructification of prayer and of grace.
All this came to pass beneath the choirs of the angels.
All this came to pass beneath the goodness of the heavens.
The star in the night shone like a nail of gold.
The star in the night shone eternally,
The star in the night like a pin of gold.
Jeannette
— A star had appeared, a star had risen which will therefore never rise again.
Madame Gervaise
— Like all little children he played with images.
Very abruptly:
Clamor which still rings in all humanity;
Clamor at which the Church militant tottered;
Where the suffering also knew its own dread;
By which the triumphant tested its triumph;
Clamor which rings at the heart of all humanity;
Clamor which rings at the heart of all Christendom;
O culminating clamor, eternal and valid.
Cry as if God himself had sinned like us;
As if even God had despaired;
O culminating clamor, eternal and valid.
As if even God had sinned like us.
And of the greatest sin.
Which is to despair.
The sin of despair.
More than the two thieves hanging at his sides;
Who howled to death like lean dogs.
The thieves howled only a human howling;
The thieves howled only a cry of human death;
They drooled also only a human drool:
The Just one alone uttered the eternal clamor.
But why? What was wrong with him?
The thieves cried only a human clamor,
For they knew only a human distress;
They had experienced only a human distress.
He alone could cry the superhuman clamor;
He alone knew then that superhuman distress.
So the thieves uttered only a cry that was extinguished in the night.
And he uttered the cry that will resound always, eternally always, the cry which shall eternally never be extinguished.
In any night. In any night of time and of eternity.
For the thief on the left and the thief on the right
Felt only the nails in the hollow of the hand.
What did the thrust of the Roman lance matter to him;
What did the thrust of the nails and the hammer matter to him;
The piercing of the nails, the piercing of the lance;
What did the nails in the hollow of the hand matter to him;
The piercing of the nails in the hollow of his two hands;
His throat which hurt him.
Which stung him.
Which burned him.
Which tore him.
His throat dry and which was thirsty.
His parched gullet.
His gullet which was thirsty.
His left hand which burned him.
And his right hand.
His left foot which burned him.
And his right foot.
Because his left hand was pierced.
And his right hand.
And his left foot was pierced.
And his right foot.
All his four limbs.
His four poor limbs.
And his flank which burned him.
His pierced flank.
His pierced heart.
And his heart which burned within him.
His heart consumed with love.
His heart devoured with love.
Peter’s denial and the Roman lance;
The spittings, the affronts, the crown of thorns;
The flagellating reed, the scepter of reed;
The clamors of the crowd and the Roman executioners.
The slap. For it was the first time he was slapped.
He had not cried out under the Roman lance;
He had not cried out under the perjured kiss;
He had not cried out under the hurricane of insult;
He had not cried out under the Roman executioners,
He had not cried out under bitterness and ingratitude.
The taste of bitterness in his throat.
In his gullet.
His throat dry and bitter with bitterness.
Dry from swallowing down bitterness.
Dry, bitter from swallowing down ingratitude.
Of men.
Bitter, suffocated from swallowing.
Suffocated by the floods of ingratitude.
Strangled from swallowing.
And he would no longer speak by (any) similitudes.
He had not cried out under the perjured face;
He had not cried out under the faces of insult;
He had not cried out under the faces of the Roman executioners.
Then why did he cry out; before what did he cry out.
Tristis, tristis usque ad mortem;
Sorrowful unto death; but unto what death;
Unto the making of a death; or unto this date
Of death.
He saw again the humble cradle of his childhood,
The crib,
Where his body was laid for the first time;
He foresaw the great tomb of his dead body,
The last cradle of every man,
Where every man must lie down.
To sleep.
Supposedly.
Apparently.
To rest at last.
To rot.
His body.
Between four planks.
While awaiting the resurrection of bodies.
Until the resurrection of bodies.
Happy when souls do not rot.
And he was a man;
He had to undergo the common lot;
To lie down in it like everyone else;
He had to pass through it like everyone else;
He would pass through it.
Like the others.
Like everyone else.
Like so many others.
After so many others.
His body would be laid down for the last time.
But he would remain there only two days, three days; because of the resurrection.
For he would rise again on the third day.
Because of his particular resurrection and his ascension.
His own.
Which he made with his own body, with the same body.
The linen of his burial;
White as the kerchief of that woman called Veronica;
The linen white as a swaddling-cloth.
And which one wraps about him entirely like a swaddling-cloth.
But larger, much larger.
Because he himself had grown.
He had become a man.
He was a child who had grown a great deal.
The great white shroud of his burial.
He would be buried by these women.
Piously by the hands of these women.
Like a man who has died in a village.
Quietly in his house in his village.
Accompanied by the last sacraments.
Piously buried and quietly by these women.
Without anyone troubling them.
By the pious hands of these women.
By the pious fingers of these women.
That is what one would call the descent from the cross.
Because the Romans were not wicked.
All these Romans.
At bottom they were not wicked.
They would not pick a quarrel with his hanged body.
And taken down.
They would not make troubles for his remains.
Mortal.
They would not seek disputes with these poor women.
With the holy women.
Nor with that old Joseph of Arimathea.
That good old man.
That wise good old man.
Who would lend him his sepulcher.
One can lend many things in this existence.
Among ourselves.
In one’s household.
One can lend one’s donkey to go to market.
One can lend one’s tub to do the wash.
And one’s beater.
One can lend one’s saucepan.
And one’s cauldron.
And one’s kettle to boil the soup.
For the children.
For the whole household.
But to lend a sepulcher.
That is not ordinary.
To lend one’s sepulcher.
One’s own tomb.
This old man would therefore lend him his sepulcher.
This wise old man.
This shrewd old man.
This rich man.
This shrewd elder.
This man with the white beard.
With hair all white.
This old sage.
This man all white.
The sepulcher he had had made.
Which he had had made for himself.
Since God the Father had so decided.
That the young often died before the old.
And that there were so many old men who did not die.
And that he himself died in the lean youth of his thirty-
three years.
Now when evening was come.
There came a certain rich man of Arimathea.
Named Joseph.
Who also himself was a disciple of Jesus.
He went to Pilate.
For one must always one day ask something of the powers.
When one is alive one defies them.
The hero, the saint, the martyr defy them.
But when one is dead.
Others do not defy them for you in matters of burial.
That proves that this Joseph of Arimathea was not
afraid to go to the powers.
To speak with the powers.
He knew how to speak. He knew how to converse.
Evidently he was a man who knew how to converse.
He was not afraid to converse.
He knew what to say.
He was not afraid.
Even before Pilate.
He knew how to present himself.
He went to Pilate.
And asked for the body of Jesus.
Then Pilate commanded the body to be given up.
It was not more difficult than that.
Decidedly this Pilate was not a bad man.
He was a good functionary.
A prefect.
Roman.
He bore no particular grudge against Jesus.
He bore no grudge against the body of Jesus.
The next day he did not even think of it any more.
He bore no personal grudge against Jesus.
He bore no grudge against the body of Jesus.
He had quite other things to think about.
The next day he did not even think of it any more.
And all humanity thinks of it eternally.
And having received the body.
Joseph wrapped it in a white shroud.
In a clean shroud.
In sindone munda.
In a white shroud.
And he placed it in his new monument.
In his new sepulcher.
Posuit illud. He laid it.
Which he had had hewn in the stone.
In the rock.
And he rolled a great stone.
He made a great rock roll.
To the door of the monument.
To the entrance of the sepulcher.
And went away.
One likes to think that afterwards he sought for his own
body another monument.
The great tomb of his burial.
The holy sepulcher.
The sepulcher of his great sepulture.
He had said to John: John, behold your mother.
— And behold your son.
He did not weep for John, Mary, and Magdalene;
He was leaving them only for a few years;
One day they would go up again to the abode of his Father;
The separation had only a human duration.
All that pertained to him, all that came from him, all
that held of him, on that side, was only human.
A distant cradle, a crib in a stable; beneath the choir of songs; beneath the choir of the angels; beneath the calm but quivering wings, the palpitating wings of the angels.
He measured more than they the greatness of the pain;
They measured it only with a human gaze;
Even the damned, even the thief who had just lost himself;
They were before him only human damned.
With his gaze of God reaching eternity,
He was at the very end at the same time as here,
He was at the very end at the same time as then.
He was in the middle and all together at the one and the other end.
He alone.
Of all.
He grasped with a single gaze his whole human life,
Which thirty years of family and three years of public ministry
Had not accomplished;
Which thirty years of family and three years of disciples,
His new family,
That other family,
His carnal family and his elect family,
The one and the other carnal, the one and the other elect,
Both carnal, both elect,
Had not consummated;
Which thirty years of work and three years of prayers,
Thirty-three years of work, thirty-three years of prayer.
Had not achieved;
Thirty-three years of work, thirty-three years of prayers.
Which thirty years of carpentry and three years of word,
Thirty-three years of carpentry, thirty-three years of word,
secret; public;
Had not exhausted;
For he had worked in carpentry, as his trade.
He worked, he was in carpentry.
In the carpenter’s trade.
He was a carpenter workman.
He had even been a good workman.
As he had been good at all things.
He was a journeyman carpenter.
His father was a small master.
He worked at his father’s.
He did work at home.
He saw, he saw again the workbench and the plane.
The workbench. The block for propping up the piece of wood
that one splits.
The saw and the long plane.
The fine shavings, the fine curls of wood.
The good smell of fresh wood.
Freshly cut.
Freshly hewn.
Freshly sawn.
And the beautiful color, and the beautiful smell,
And the good color, and the good smell.
Of the wood when one removes the bark.
When one peels it.
Like a beautiful fruit.
Like a good fruit.
That one would eat.
But it is the tools that eat it.
And the bark that separates.
That parts.
That peels.
That comes away delicately under the axe.
That smells so good and has so fine a brown color.
How he loved that trade.
The bark which has so good a color, so good a smell.
How he loved his trade.
He was made for that trade.
Surely.
The trade of cradles and of coffins.
Which resemble one another so much.
Of tables and of beds.
And also of other pieces of furniture.
Of all pieces of furniture.
For one must not forget anyone.
One must not discourage anyone.
The trade of sideboards, of armoires, of chests of drawers.
Of bread-boxes.
To put the bread in.
Of stools.
And the world is but the footstool of thy feet.
For in that time the joiners were not yet
separated from the carpenters.
All that worked the wood.
How he had loved work well done.
A work well wrought.
He had been a good workman.
A good carpenter.
As he had been a good son.
A good son to his mother Mary.
A very well-behaved child.
Very docile.
Very submissive.
Very obedient to his father and mother.
A child.
Such as all parents would want to have.
A good son to his father Joseph.
To his foster-father Joseph.
The old carpenter.
The master carpenter.
As he had also been a good son to his father.
To his Father which art in heaven.
As he had been a good comrade to his little comrades.
A good school comrade.
A good comrade at play.
A good companion at play.
A good companion in the workshop.
A good companion carpenter.
Among all the other companions.
Carpenters.
For all the companions.
Carpenters.
As he had been a good poor man.
As he had been a good citizen.
He had been a good son to his father and mother.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
His preaching.
A good son to his mother Mary.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
A good son to his father Joseph.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
In short, all had gone well.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
He was generally loved.
Everyone loved him well.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
Comrades, friends, companions, authorities,
Citizens,
Father and mother
Found that very fine.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
Comrades found that he was a good comrade.
Friends a good friend.
Companions a good companion.
Not proud.
Citizens found that he was a good citizen.
Equals a good equal.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
Citizens found that he was a good citizen.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
Until the day when he had revealed himself as another citizen.
As the founder, as the citizen of another city.
For it is of the heavenly City.
And of the eternal City.
The authorities found that very fine.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
The authorities found that he was a man of order.
A steady young man.
A quiet young man.
A well-conducted young man.
Convenient to govern.
And who rendered to Caesar what is Caesar’s.
Until the day when he had begun disorder.
Introduced disorder.
The greatest disorder there has been in the world.
That there has ever been in the world.
The greatest order there has been in the world.
The only order.
That there has ever been in the world.
Until the day when he had bestirred himself.
And in bestirring himself he had stirred up the world
Until the day when he revealed himself
The only Government of the world.
The Master of the world.
The only Master of the world.
And when he appeared to all the world.
When the equals saw clearly.
That he had no equal.
Then the world began to find that he was too great.
And to make troubles for him.
And until the day when he undertook to render to God what
is God’s.
He was a good son to his father and mother.
A good son to his mother Mary.
And his father and mother found that very fine.
His mother Mary found that very fine.
She was happy, she was proud to have such a son.
To be the mother of such a son.
Of such a son.
She gloried in it perhaps within herself and she glorified God.
Magnificat anima mea.
Dominum.
Et exultavit spiritus meus.
Magnificat. Magnificat.
Until the day when he had begun his mission.
But since he had begun his mission.
She magnified perhaps no longer.
For three days she had been weeping.
She wept, she wept.
As no woman ever wept.
No woman.
That is what he had brought back to his mother.
Never had a boy cost his mother so many tears.
Never had a boy made his mother weep so much.
That is what he had brought back to his mother.
Since he had begun his mission.
Because he had begun his mission.
For three days she had been weeping.
For three days she had been wandering, she had been following.
She followed the cortège.
She followed the events.
She followed as at a burial.
But it was the burial of a living man.
Of one still living.
She followed what was happening.
She followed as if she had been of the cortège.
Of the ceremony.
She followed as a serving-woman.
As a servant.
As a mourning-woman of the Romans.
Of Roman burials.
As if it had been her trade.
To weep.
She followed as a poor woman.
As one accustomed to the cortège.
As an attendant of the cortège.
As a servant.
Already as one accustomed.
She followed as a beggar-woman.
As a mendicant.
They who had never asked anything of anyone.
Now she asked charity.
Without seeming to she asked charity.
Since without seeming to, without even knowing it, she
asked the charity of pity.
Of a piety.
Of a certain piety.
Pietas.
That is what he had made of his mother.
Since he had begun his mission.
She followed, she wept.
She wept, she wept.
Women know only how to weep.
She was seen everywhere.
In the cortège but a little outside the cortège.
Under the porticoes, under the arcades, in the drafts.
In the temples, in the palaces.
In the streets.
In the courtyards and in the back-courts.
And she had gone up also onto Calvary.
She too had climbed Calvary.
Which is a steep mountain.
And she did not even feel that she was walking.
She did not even feel her feet that carried her.
She did not feel her legs beneath her.
She too had climbed her calvary.
She too had gone up, gone up
In the throng, a little behind.
Gone up to Golgotha.
Upon Golgotha.
Upon the summit.
Up to the summit.
Where he was now crucified.
Nailed by his four limbs.
Like a night-bird on the door of a barn.
He the King of Light.
At the place called Golgotha.
That is to say the place of the Skull.
That is what he had made of his mother.
Maternal.
A woman in tears.
A poor woman.
A poor woman of distress.
A poor woman in distress.
A kind of beggar-woman of pity.
Since he had begun to accomplish his mission.
For three days she had been following, she had been following.
Accompanied only by three or four women.
By these holy women.
Escorted, surrounded only by these few women.
By these few holy women.
By the holy women.
At last.
Since eternally they were to be so named.
Who thus were gaining.
Who thus were assuring their share of paradise.
And surely they would have a good place.
As good as the one they had at this moment.
Since they would have the same place.
For they would be as near him as at this moment.
I mean that they would be as near him as at this moment.
As at this very moment.
Eternally as near as at this very moment.
Eternally as near as at this moment of time.
Of the time of Judea.
Eternally as near in his glory.
As in his passion.
In the glory of his passion.
And all four together or perhaps a little more or less.
A little more, a little less.
They always formed a little group apart.
A little cortège a little behind the great cortège.
A little behind.
And one recognized them.
She wept, she wept beneath a great linen veil.
A great blue veil.
A little faded.
That is what he had made of his mother.
She wept as never it shall be granted;
As never it shall be asked
Of a woman to weep upon earth.
Eternally never.
Of any woman.
That is what he had made of his mother.
Of a maternal mother.
What is curious is that everyone respected her.
People greatly respect the parents of the condemned.
They even said: the poor woman.
And at the same time they were striking at her son.
Because man is like that.
Man is so made.
The world is like that.
Men are as they are and one will never
be able to change them.
She did not know that on the contrary he had come to change
man.
That he had come to change the world.
She followed, she wept.
And at the same time they were striking at her boy.
She followed, she followed.
Men are like that.
One will not change them.
One will not remake them.
One will never remake them.
And he, he had come to change them.
To remake them.
To change the world.
To remake it.
She followed, she wept.
Everyone respected her.
Everyone pitied her.
They said the poor woman.
It is that all these people perhaps were not wicked.
They were not wicked at bottom.
They were accomplishing the Scriptures.
What is curious is that everyone respected her.
Honored, respected, admired her sorrow.
They put her aside, they pushed her back only moderately.
With particular attentions.
Because she was the mother of the condemned.
They thought: it is the family of the condemned.
They even said it in a low voice.
They said it to themselves, among themselves,
With a secret admiration.
And they were right, it was all his family.
His carnal family and his elect family.
His family on earth and his family in heaven.
She followed, she wept.
Her eyes were so blurred that the light of day would never
seem clear to her.
Never again.
For three days the people had been saying: She has aged
ten years.
I saw her again.
I had still seen her last week.
In three days she has aged ten years.
Never again.
She followed, she wept, she did not understand very well.
But she understood very well that the government
was against her boy.
Which is a bad business.
That the government was for putting him to death.
Always a bad business.
And which could not end well.
All the governments had agreed against him.
The government of the Jews and the government of the
Romans.
The government of the judges and the government of the
priests.
The government of the soldiers and the government of the
curates.
He surely would not escape it.
Certainly not.
Everyone was against him.
Everyone was for his death.
For putting him to death.
Wanted his death.
Sometimes one had a government for oneself.
And the other against oneself.
Then one could escape it.
But he had all the governments.
All the governments first of all.
And the government and the people.
That is what there was of strongest.
It was that above all that one had against oneself.
The government and the people.
Who ordinarily are never in agreement.
And then one takes advantage of it.
One can take advantage of it.
It is very rare that the government and the people are
in agreement.
And then he who is against the government
Is with the people.
For the people.
And he who is against the people
Is with the government.
For the government.
He who is supported by the government.
Is not supported by the people.
He who is upheld by the people
Is not upheld by the government.
Then by leaning upon one or the other.
Upon one against the other.
One could sometimes escape it.
One could perhaps come to an arrangement.
But they had no luck.
She saw clearly that everyone was against him.
The government and the people.
Together.
And that they would have him.
That they would have his hide.
What was curious is that the derision was all upon him.
And that there was no derision upon her.
For her.
No derision.
They had only respect for her.
For her sorrow.
For her misfortune.
They did not say foolish things to her.
On the contrary.
The people did not even look at her too much.
The better to respect her.
To respect her the more.
She too had gone up.
Gone up with everyone.
Up to the summit.
Without even noticing it.
Her legs carried her without her even noticing it.
She too had made her way of the cross.
The fourteen stations.
Indeed was it really fourteen stations.
Were there really fourteen stations.
Were there really fourteen.
She did not know exactly anymore.
She did not remember anymore.
Yet she had made them.
She was sure of it.
But one can be mistaken.
In moments like that the head is troubled.
We who have not made them know it.
She who had made them did not know it.
Everyone was against him.
Everyone wanted his death.
It is curious.
Worlds that ordinarily were not together.
The government and the people.
So that the government bore him a grudge like the
lowest of carters.
As much as the lowest of carters.
And the lowest of carters like the government.
As much as the government.
It was playing in bad luck.
When one has one for oneself, the other against oneself sometimes
one escapes it.
One gets out of it.
One can get out of it.
One can escape it.
But he would not escape it.
Surely he would not escape it.
When one has everyone against oneself.
What had he done then to everyone.
I shall tell you:
He had saved the world.
She wept, she wept.
For three days she had been weeping.
No, only for two days.
No, only since the evening before.
He had been arrested the evening before.
Only.
She remembered well.
Thus.
How time passes.
How quickly time passes.
No, slowly.
How slowly it passes.
She thought there were three days.
How one is mistaken.
He had been arrested in the garden of Olives.
Which was a place for walks.
For people on Sundays.
He had been arrested the evening before in the garden of Olives
She remembered well.
She remembered very well.
But it seemed to her.
She thought there were three days.
At least.
And even more.
Much more.
Days and days.
And years.
It seemed to her there had been almost always.
So to speak always.
It seemed to her.
That it had always been like that.
There are in life events like that.
Everyone was against him.
From Pontius Pilate down to the lowest of carters.
She followed from afar.
From near.
From rather far.
From rather near.
That howling mob.
That pack which was barking.
And biting.
That howling mob which was howling and striking.
Without conviction.
With conviction.
For they were accomplishing the Scriptures.
One can say they were striking religiously.
Since they were accomplishing the Scriptures.
Of the prophets.
Everyone was against him.
From Pontius Pilate.
That Pontius Pilate.
Pontius Pilatus.
Sub Pontio Pilato passus.
Et sepultus est.
A good man.
At least so they said, a good man.
Good.
Not wicked.
A Roman.
Who understood the interests of the country.
And who had a great deal of trouble governing these Jews.
Who are an indocile race.
Only, behold, for three days a madness had taken
them against her boy.
A madness. A kind of rage.
Yes they were enraged.
After him.
What was the matter with them.
He had not done so much harm as all that.
All.
At their head Pontius Pilate.
The man who washed his hands.
The procurator.
The procurator for the Romans.
The procurator of Judea.
All. And Caiaphas the high priest.
The generals, the officers, the soldiers.
The non-commissioned officers, captains-of-hundred, centurions, decurions.
The priests and the princes of the priests.
The writers.
That is to say the scribes.
The Pharisees, the publicans, the toll-collectors.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees.
The publicans who are as one might say the tax-collectors.
And who are not for that worse men
than the others.
They had also told her that he had disciples.
Apostles.
But not one was to be seen.
Perhaps it was not true.
Perhaps he had none.
Perhaps he had never had any.
One is mistaken, sometimes, in life.
If he had had any one would have seen them.
Because if he had had any, they would have shown themselves.
Eh, they were men, they would have shown themselves.
Not only did she weep, did she weep.
She wept for today and for tomorrow.
And for all her future.
For all her life to come.
But she wept, she wept also.
She wept for her past.
For the days when she had been happy in her past.
The innocent one.
To efface the days when she had been happy in
her past.
To efface her days of happiness.
Her former days of happiness.
Because those days had deceived her.
Those deceiving days.
Those days had betrayed her.
Those former days.
Those days when she ought to have wept in advance.
By provision.
One ought always to weep by provision.
In advance of the days to come.
Of the misfortunes to come.
Of the misfortune that watches.
She ought to have taken her precautions.
Foreseen.
One ought always to take one’s precautions.
If she had known.
If she had known she would have wept always.
Wept all her life.
Wept in advance.
She would have been on her guard.
She would have got ahead.
That way she would not have been deceived.
She would not have been betrayed.
She had betrayed herself by not weeping.
She had stolen from herself.
She had deceived herself.
By not weeping.
By accepting those days of happiness.
She had betrayed herself.
She had entered into the game.
When one thinks that there are days when she had laughed.
Innocently.
The innocent one.
Everything was going so well in those days.
She wept, she wept to efface those days.
She wept, she wept, she effaced those days.
Those days which she had stolen.
Which had been stolen from her.
Those days which she had stolen from her poor son who at
this moment was expiring on the cross.
Not only did he have the people against him.
But both peoples.
Both peoples.
The people of the poor.
Which is serious.
And respectable.
And the people of the wretched.
Of the destitute.
Which is not serious.
Nor not respectable.
He had against him those who worked and those who
did nothing.
Those who worked and those who did not work.
Together.
Equally.
The people of the workers.
Which is serious.
And respectable.
And the people of the beggars.
Which is not serious.
But which is perhaps respectable all the same.
Because one does not know.
The head is troubled.
The head is unsettled.
Ideas are unsettled when one sees things like that.
He had against him the workers of the cities.
Of the city.
Those who work in town.
At the masters’.
At the bourgeois.
And also, equally, together the workers of the fields.
Equally also.
The peasants who come to market.
He had not after all done harm to all these people.
To all that world there.
Anyway one exaggerates.
One always exaggerates.
The world is a bad tongue.
One exaggerated.
Anyway he had not done harm to everyone.
He was too young.
He had not had the time.
First of all he would not have had the time.
When a man has fallen, everyone is upon him.
You know, Christians, what he had done.
He had done this.
That he had saved the world.
It is a singular fortune to turn,
To turn everyone against oneself.
She wept, she wept, she had become ugly from it.
She the greatest Beauty of the world.
The mystical Rose.
The Tower of ivory.
Turris eburnea.
The Queen of beauty.
In three days she had become hideous to behold.
The people said she had aged ten years.
They did not know. She had aged more than ten years.
She knew, she felt well that she had aged more than ten years.
She had aged a lifetime.
The fools.
A whole lifetime.
She had aged her whole lifetime and more than
her life, more than one life.
For she had aged by an eternity.
She had aged by her eternity.
Which is the first eternity after the eternity of God.
For she had aged by her eternity.
She had become Queen.
She had become the Queen of the Seven Sorrows.
She wept, she wept, she had become so ugly.
In three days.
She had become hideous.
Hideous to see.
So ugly, so hideous.
That one would have mocked her.
Surely.
If she had not been the mother of the condemned one.
She wept, she wept. Her eyes, her poor eyes
Her poor eyes were reddened with tears.
And never would they see clearly.
Afterwards.
Since.
Thereafter.
Never again.
Never henceforth would she see clearly.
To work.
And yet afterwards she would have to work to earn
her living.
Her poor life.
To work still.
Afterwards as before.
Until death.
To mend the stockings, the socks.
Joseph would still wear them out.
Anyway everything that a woman has to do in her household.
One has such trouble earning one’s living.
She wept, she had become hideous.
The lashes stuck together.
Both eyelids, the upper and the lower,
Swollen, bruised, bloody.
The cheeks ravaged.
The cheeks furrowed.
The cheeks darned.
Her tears had as it were ploughed her cheeks.
The tears on either side had hollowed for her a furrow
in the cheeks.
Her eyes burned, scalded her.
Never had one wept so much.
And yet it was a relief for her to weep.
The skin burned her, scalded her.
And he during this time on the cross the Five Wounds
burned him.
And he had the fever.
And she had the fever.
And she was thus associated to his Passion.
She wept, she looked so strange, so hideous to behold.
So hideous.
That one would have laughed certainly.
And one would have mocked her.
Certainly.
If she had not been the mother of the condemned one.
Even the urchins of the streets turned away.
When they saw her.
Turned away their heads.
Turned away their eyes.
So as not to laugh.
So as not to laugh in her face.
And one does not know, perhaps also so as not to weep.
Fortunately still that he knew this old Joseph
of Arimathea.
A good man, that old one, without any doubt.
And fortunately above all that this old man was willing
to take an interest in him.
In his remains.
Mortal.
She would thus have a great consolation.
The only one.
A single one.
The last.
The consolation of the burial.
Of the entombment and of the burial.
He would even be buried in a fine sepulchre.
In a new sepulchre.
Hewn in the stone.
In the rock.
Right into the rock.
To say it all he would be wrapped in a fine shroud.
A bedsheet.
For his last bed.
For his last sleep.
And to say it all he would be buried in the sepulchre of a rich man.
Fortunately this old man was going to take care of him.
To take an interest in him.
In his body. In his remains.
Mortal.
You see it is always good to be protected.
This old wise man.
A good man.
Prudent as old men are.
Sparing.
Cautious.
Attentive.
Considerate. Solicitous.
Sparing.
Thrifty.
Perhaps a little miserly, as old men are.
Because there does not remain to them much of life.
Which is the first of goods.
The greatest good.
Boaz was indeed thrifty.
Thrifty, sparing of his blood.
Thrifty, sparing of his money.
And even sparing of his time.
He had nevertheless had a fine sepulchre made for himself,
A fine tomb.
A fine monument.
Hewn in the stone, in the rock.
Right into the rock.
He had spent a little money for his burial.
To be comfortable.
And here he was lending, giving, abandoning
his sepulchre to Jesus.
Oh oh here was something that proved her son was not so abandoned.
Since a rich man was lending him his sepulchre.
To lend one’s sepulchre, is perhaps the greatest sacrifice
that one can make to a man.
Especially when one is old.
And when one was counting on resting there in peace.
When one had had it built expressly for that.
Expressly for oneself.
To rest there in peace.
This old man.
Decidedly this man had made the greatest sacrifice
that one can make to Jesus Christ.
He was a very fine man.
He knew the government.
The governor.
The procurator of Judea.
He knew Pilate very well.
He was even perhaps on very good terms with Pilate.
One does not know.
One never knows.
He had all the more merit in occupying himself with her son.
She wept. She wept. She melted.
She melted in tears.
She swallowed back her tears with her saliva.
And at the same time her throat was dry, burning.
With fever.
The gullet dry.
Burning.
She had her head all in water.
And there was always more.
And there always came out more.
And at the same time her head was dry, heavy, burning.
Heavy.
And her eyes stung her.
And it was beating in her temples.
From having wept so much.
And from still wishing to weep.
She wept. She melted. Her heart was melting.
Her body was melting.
She melted with goodness.
With charity.
There was only her head that was not melting.
She walked as if involuntary.
She no longer recognized herself.
She bore no grudge against anyone.
She melted in goodness.
In charity.
It was too great a misfortune.
Her sorrow was too great.
It was too great a sorrow.
One cannot bear a grudge against the world for a misfortune
that surpasses the world.
It was no longer worth the trouble of bearing a grudge against the world.
Of bearing a grudge against anyone.
She who once would have defended her boy against
all the wild beasts.
When he was little.
Today she was abandoning him to this crowd.
She let go.
She let it flow.
What can a woman do in a crowd.
I ask you.
She no longer recognized herself.
She was greatly changed.
She was going to hear the cry.
The cry that shall be extinguished in no night of any time.
It was not surprising that she no longer recognized herself.
Indeed she was no longer the same.
Until that day she had been the Queen of Beauty.
And she would no longer be, she would no longer become again the Queen
of Beauty except in heaven.
The day of her death and of her assumption.
After the day of her death and of her assumption.
Eternally.
But today she was becoming the Queen of Mercy.
As she will be in the centuries of centuries.
She was nevertheless content that this rich man
should have taken care of her son.
A man esteemed.
Esteemed.
A notable merchant.
Retired.
Withdrawn from business.
And even doubtless that he had been on good terms with her son.
For one does not just give one’s sepulchre like that to someone
with whom one was not on good terms.
Whom one does not even know.
That way one saw clearly, one could not say that
her son was a good-for-nothing.
A loafer. A vagabond.
As the princes of the priests had not ceased
to repeat before the tribunal.
Although she was forced to admit that for three years one
had not seen him at home.
And that he ran the roads with people who were
not workers who worked.
But it was not for her to load her son.
One sometimes has much trouble with children.
Madam.
That one had never given them anything but satisfaction.
All the satisfactions that one can ask for in
existence.
As long as he remained a boy.
As long as he remained at home.
Until the day, until the day when he had begun his mission.
When he had begun to accomplish his mission.
But since he had begun his mission.
Begun to accomplish his mission.
Since he had left the house.
He had given them nothing but worry.
One must say it, he had never given them anything but worry.
One often has much worry with children.
One often has much trouble with children.
He who had once given them so much contentment.
He had once given them nothing but contentment.
One sometimes has much worry with children.
When they grow up.
She had said so to Joseph.
It would end badly.
They had been so happy until he was thirty.
It could not last.
It could not end well.
It could not end otherwise.
He drifted along.
He went along the roads
He drifted along the roads with people of whom she did not
want to speak ill.
But the proof that they were not worth much.
Is that they had not defended him.
First of all he made too many enemies for himself.
That is not prudent.
Enemies are always met again.
The enemies one makes are always met again.
He disturbed too many people.
Also.
The world does not like to be disturbed.
One is sometimes oddly rewarded in life.
Never had a child made his mother weep so much.
One sometimes has odd rewards.
One is sometimes oftentimes oddly rewarded in
existence.
Never had a boy made his mother weep so much.
Than him she
For these three days and these three nights.
For these three years.
What a pity. A life that had begun so well.
It was a pity. She remembered well.
How he shone upon the straw in that stable of
Bethlehem.
A star had risen.
The shepherds adored him.
The magi adored him.
The angels adored him.
What had then become of all those people there.
One is sometimes oddly rewarded.
With children.
A star had risen.
The shepherds adored him.
And presented him with wool.
Fleeces of wool.
Skeins of wool.
The kings adored him.
And presented him with gold, frankincense and myrrh.
The angels adored him.
The magi kings Gaspar, Melchior and Balthazar.
What had then become of all those people there.
What had all that world become.
And yet they were the same people.
It was the same world.
The people were always the people.
The world was always the world.
The world had not been changed.
The kings were always the kings.
And the shepherds were always the shepherds.
The great were always the great.
And the small were always the small.
The rich were always the rich.
And the poor were always the poor.
The government was always the government.
She did not see that in fact he had changed the world.
They were the same shepherds, the same peasants of the countryside.
Who had come into town.
Today.
Who were howling at his heels.
The world had then been changed in thirty years.
She did not see.
That in fact he had changed the world.
Who were howling for death at his heels.
She did not see that in fact.
He had changed the world.
One pulled him, the other pushed him.
This way, that way.
But the one who pulled him and the one who pushed him.
It was always toward this summit of Golgotha.
It is a pity, it was a life that had begun so well.
Everyone had welcomed him so well.
At his entry into the world.
At his birth.
Which one named his Nativity.
Had given him such a fine welcome.
When he was little.
But now that he was grown.
That he had become a man.
No one wanted to know anything more.
And yet it was the same world.
And yet it was the same man.
No one wanted to know anything more.
And they knew nothing, all of them, but to strike upon him.
With howls.
Hideous howls.
And cries of death.
They saw, they heard nothing more.
They felt nothing more.
They had but one idea.
They had only one idea left.
Was but to strike upon him.
When he was little everyone had wanted him.
Everyone seemed glad to see him.
And now that he was grown.
That he had become a man.
No one wanted him anymore.
One did not even want to hear of him anymore.
The world is changeable.
One has nevertheless spoken enough of him since in the world.
No one wanted to see him anymore.
The world is greatly changed.
Men are greatly changed.
Small children, small torments. Big children, big
torments.
One sometimes has much trouble, madam, with the
children.
One could not say that she had enjoyed her boy.
She who had so promised herself.
She who had so congratulated herself.
One could not say that she had profited from him.
One still could not say.
But also it was perhaps their fault.
One still could not say.
It was their fault. It must have been their fault.
They had always been too proud of him.
Joseph and she they were too proud of him.
It was bound to end badly.
One must not be proud like that.
One must not be so proud as that.
One must not glory.
How much contentment had they had.
The day that old man Simeon
Had intoned that canticle to the Lord.
Which shall be sung in the centuries of centuries.
So be it.
And there was also that good old woman in the temple.
How proud they had been.
Too proud.
And that time too.
That time when he shone among the doctors.
They had first had a sharp shock from it.
Coming home.
He was not there.
All of a sudden he was not there.
They thought they had forgotten him somewhere.
She was still all shaken from it.
They thought they had lost him.
They thought first that they had lost him.
It is not funny. She still trembled from it.
It was not an ordinary thing.
It is not an ordinary adventure to lose a boy
of twelve.
A big boy of twelve.
Happily they had found him again in the temple
in the midst of the doctors.
Seated in the midst of the doctors.
The doctors were listening to him religiously.
He was teaching, at twelve he was teaching in the midst of the doctors.
How proud they had been of it.
Too proud.
He ought to have been on his guard that day all the same.
He was really too brilliant, he shone too much, he radiated
too much among the doctors.
For the doctors.
He was too great among the doctors.
For the doctors.
He had shown too visibly.
He had let it be seen too much.
He had manifested too much that he was God.
The doctors do not like that.
He ought to have been on his guard. These people have memories.
That is even why they are doctors.
He had surely wounded them that day.
The doctors have good memories.
The doctors have long memories.
He ought to have been on his guard. These people have long memories.
And then they hold together.
They uphold one another.
The doctors have long memories.
He had surely wounded them that day.
At twelve years old.
And at thirty-three years old they were catching up with him.
And this time they would not miss him.
It was death.
They had him.
They had his hide.
At thirty-three they had caught up with him.
The doctors have long memories.
They had caught him at the half-circle.
At the half-turn.
At the turning of his carnal road.
At the turning of his mystical road.
And they had led him to death.
To this death.
They held him well.
This time.
And they would not let him go.
They would not let him go anymore.
Ah he no longer shone in the midst of the doctors.
Seated in the midst of the doctors.
He did not shine.
And yet he shone eternally.
More than he ever shone.
More than he had shone anywhere.
And here was the reward.
One is sometimes oddly rewarded in life.
One sometimes has odd rewards.
And together they made such a fine household.
The boy and the mother.
They had been so happy in that time.
The mother and the boy.
Here was her reward.
Here was how she was rewarded.
For having borne.
For having brought forth.
For having nursed.
For having carried.
In her arms.
The one who died for the sins of the world.
For having borne.
For having brought forth.
For having nursed.
For having carried.
In her arms.
The one who died for the salvation of the world.
For having borne.
For having brought forth.
For having nursed.
For having carried.
In her arms.
The one by whom the sins of the world shall be remitted.
And for having made his soup and tucked in his bed until he was thirty.
For he willingly let himself be surrounded by her tenderness.
He knew that it would not always last.
And now she had just seen him treated as it is not pleasant for a mother to see her boy treated. Treatments. Treatments. Blows. Nameless insults. Outrages. Treatments. of which it is better not to speak.
Nameless treatments.
And death at the end.
With death at the end.
One has such trouble with children.
One raises them and then afterwards.
She felt everything that was going on in his body.
Above all the suffering.
Children give you only torment.
Everything that there was in his body.
In his body as in hers.
She felt his body as her own.
Because she was a mother.
She was a mother.
She was his mother.
His mother of the works of the Spirit and his carnal mother.
His nursing mother.
He also had a cramp.
He had above all a cramp.
A frightful cramp.
Because of that position.
Of staying always in the same position.
She felt it.
Of being forced to be in that hideous position.
A cramp through the whole body.
And all the weight of his body bore upon his four
Wounds.
He had cramps.
She knew how he suffered.
She felt how he was in pain.
She had pain in her head and in her side and in her Four
Wounds.
And he in himself was saying: Here is my mother. What
have I done with her.
Here is what I have made of my mother.
This poor old woman.
Become old.
Who has been following us for twenty-four hours.
From praetorium to praetorium.
And from praetorium to public square.
Honor thy father and thy mother.
That thou mayest live long.
It was the law of his father.
Our father who art in heaven.
As he had dictated it to Moses.
The first Lawgiver.
His father who speaks in the Burning Bush.
And here was how he lived long.
If not in his eternity.
And here was how he honored his father and his mother.
If not in their eternity.
He had made this old woman of her.
It is the custom, when parents are old.
That children feed their father and mother.
When the father and mother have become old.
It is the custom. And it is the law.
When the children have grown up.
When the children have become grown up.
Become men.
It is the custom. It is the law. It is the rule.
The law of his father.
And here was how he fed his parents.
If not in his eternity.
He had made his mother make her way of the cross.
From afar, from near.
From rather far, from rather near.
She had followed.
A way of the cross much more painful than
his own.
For it is much more painful to see one’s son suffer.
Than to suffer oneself.
It is much more painful to see one’s son die.
Than to die oneself.
He had fed them.
His parents.
But he himself it was with gall and bitterness.
It is the custom, it is the law, it is the rule.
That sons bring something to their parents.
That children.
In growing up.
Bring something to their parents.
In growing old.
He here was what he had brought to his father and mother.
Here is what he had brought to his mother.
What he had put into her hand.
Here is how he had rewarded her.
He had brought her.
He had put into her hand
The Seven Sorrows.
He had brought her.
He had put into her hand
To be the Queen.
To be the Mother.
He had brought her
To be
Our Lady of the Seven Sorrows.
One must say also.
One must say that it was a royal present.
One must say that it was an eternal present.
Then like all the dying he went over his whole life again.
The whole life at Nazareth.
He saw himself again all along his whole life.
And he wondered how he had been able to make himself
so many enemies.
It was a feat. How he had managed to make himself
so many enemies.
It was a feat. It was a challenge.
Those of the city, those of the suburbs, those of the countrysides
All those who were there, who had come.
Who had gathered (themselves) there.
Who were assembled.
As to a feast.
To a hateful feast.
The day laborers, the men of toil.
The mercenaries, the rentiers.
The high-pontiff, the princes of the priests.
The writers, that is to say the scribes.
The Pharisees, the toll-collectors.
The publicans who are the tax-collectors.
The Pharisees and the Sadducees.
Christians, you know why:
It is that he had come to announce the reign of God.
And on the whole all that world there was right.
All that world there was not so much mistaken as all that.
It was the great feast that was being given for the salvation of
the world.
Only it was he who was paying the cost.
The merchants, he still understood.
It was he who had begun.
He had got angry with them one day.
In a holy anger.
And he had chased them from the temple.
With great strokes of the whip.
Perhaps with great strokes of the whip.
And with words that must not have been pleasant to them.
He had thus hindered them.
In their affairs.
Disturbed.
Momentarily.
In their affairs.
He had encroached upon their interests.
He could have harmed them in their trade.
He had chased the traffickers from the temple.
All those who were selling and buying in the temple.
He had overturned the tables of the money-changers.
Mensas numerariorum.
And the seats of those who sold doves.
Et cathedras vendentium columbas.
And he did not permit that anyone should carry any
vessel through the temple.
Et non sinebat ut quisquam transferret vas per templum.
But also these merchants it was their fault.
Why had they turned into a den of thieves
The house of God.
Is it not written.
Nonne scriptum est :
That my house shall be called by all the nations the
house of prayer.
Quia domus mea, domus orationis vocabitur omnibus gentibus.
But you you have made of it a den of thieves.
Vos autem fecistis eam speluncam latronum.
And he continued to teach in the temple.
And to heal.
He taught every day in the temple.
That is what he had done at Jerusalem.
Almost immediately after his entry into Jerusalem.
Almost immediately after he had entered Jerusalem.
Mounted on the foal of a she-ass.
In order that the Scriptures of the Prophets.
Should be accomplished.
Besides he did not like merchants.
A workman.
Son of workmen.
Foster son.
Son nourished.
Of a working family.
By instinct he did not like merchants.
He understood nothing of commerce.
Of trade.
He knew only how to work.
He was inclined to believe that all merchants were
thieves.
The merchants, the merchants of the Temple he still
understood.
But the others.
Like a dying man, like all the dying he went over
his whole life again.
At the moment of presenting it.
Of bringing it back to his father.
One day the comrades had found him too great.
Simply.
One day the friends, the friends had found him too great.
One day the citizens had found him too great.
And he had not been a prophet in his own country.
Christians, you know why:
It is that he had come to announce the reign of God.
All the world had found him too great.
It was too plain that he was the son of God.
When one frequented him.
The Jews had found him too great.
For a Jew.
Too great a Jew.
It was too plain that he was the Messiah predicted by the Prophets.
Announced, awaited from the centuries of centuries.
He went over, he went over all the hours of his life.
The whole life at Nazareth.
He had sown so much love.
He was reaping so much hatred.
His heart burned him.
His heart devoured with love.
And to his mother he had brought this
To see thus treated.
The fruit of her womb.
And it was the same who on the day of Palms.
A few days before.
A few months, a few weeks.
Palm Sunday.
Had made him this triumphal entry.
A triumphal entry into Jerusalem.
His heart burned him.
His heart devoured him.
His heart burned with love.
His heart devoured with love.
His heart consumed with love.
And had any man ever stirred up so much hatred.
Had any man ever stirred up such a hatred.
It was a feat.
It was like a challenge.
As he had sown he had not reaped.
His father knew why.
Did his friends love him as much as his enemies hated him.
His father knew it.
His disciples did not defend him as much as his
enemies pursued him.
His disciples, his disciples did they love him as much as his
enemies hated him.
His father knew it.
His apostles did not defend him as much as his
enemies pursued him.
His apostles, his apostles did they love him as much as his
enemies hated him.
His father knew it.
Did the eleven love him as much as the twelfth, as the
thirteenth hated him.
Did the eleven love him as much as the twelfth, as the
thirteenth had betrayed him.
His father knew it.
His father knew it.
What was man then.
This man
Whom he had come to save.
Whose nature he had put on.
He did not know.
As man he did not know.
For no man knows man.
For a man’s lifetime.
A human life, as man, does not suffice to
know man.
So great is he. And so small is he.
So high is he. And so low is he.
What was man then.
This man.
Whose nature he had put on.
His father knew it.
And those soldiers who had arrested him.
Who had led him from praetorium to praetorium.
And from praetorium to public square.
And those executioners who had crucified him.
People who were doing their trade.
Those soldiers who were playing at dice.
Who were sharing his garments.
Who were playing his garments at dice.
Who were casting lots for his robe.
It was still they who bore him no grudge.
That thirty years of labor and three years of labor,
That thirty years of retreat and three years of public life,
Thirty years in his family and three years among the people,
Thirty years of workshop and three years of public,
Three years of public life and thirty of private
Had not crowned,
Thirty years of private life and three of public.
(He had put his private life before his public life.
His retreat before his preaching)
(Before his passion and his death)
Since the crowning of this death was still needed.
Since the accomplishment of this martyrdom was needed.
Since the attestation of this witness was needed.
Since the consummation of this martyrdom and of this death was needed.
Since the achievement of these three days of agony was needed, had been needed.
Since the exhaustion of this supreme agony and of this dreadful anguish was needed.
And the descent from the cross, and the entombment; the three days of burial, the three days of tomb, the three days in limbo, until the resurrection; and the singular life post mortem, the pilgrims of Emmaus, the ascension of the fortieth day.
Since it was needed.
It is that the Son of God knew that suffering
Of the son of man is vain to save the damned,
And going more frantic than they with despair,
Jesus dying wept upon the abandoned.
Of the common despair.
More than they going frantic with their despair, with the same
despair, as they, with their own despair.
He had the same despair as they. But he was God:
what despair did he not have.
As he felt his human death rising up to him,
Without seeing his mother in tears and sorrowing below,
Erect at the foot of the cross, nor John, nor Magdalene,
Jesus dying wept upon the death of Judas.
Dying of his death, of our human death, only,
he wept upon that eternal death.
He the first of the saints upon the first damned;
He the greatest of the saints upon the greatest damned;
He the author, the inventor of redemption,
Upon the first object of damnation,
He the author, the inventor of the ransom of our souls;
He the inaugurator of salvation,
Upon the inaugurator of perdition.
Upon the first object of reprobation
Eternal.
For he had known that the supreme damned
Was throwing down the money of blood that he had had himself paid,
The price of blood, the thirty pieces of silver in the coinage of
that country there;
Counted in pieces of silver, in the pieces of silver of that time of
that country there.
The thirty pieces of silver, temporal price, temporal coinage,
temporal pieces of silver.
These thirty wretched pieces of silver, price of an eternal blood.
These thirty wretched pieces of silver one would have done better
not to mint them.
Never to mint them.
Wretched he who struck them.
With the effigy of Caesar.
Wretched he who received them.
With the effigy of Caesar.
Wretched all those who had dealings with them.
With the effigy of Caesar.
Wretched all those who had commerce with them.
With the effigy, with the effigy of Caesar.
Who passed them from hand to hand.
Dangerous pieces of silver.
More false.
Infinitely more dangerous.
Infinitely more false than counterfeit money.
And yet they were of good alloy.
These pieces of silver of which it will be spoken all the time. And more than
in time.
Beyond time.
The very priests who had given them.
Would have them no more.
The priests, the sacrificers, the senators who had
given them.
To pay for innocent blood.
Would not take them back.
Then seeing Judas.
Who betrayed him.
Who delivered him up.
That he was condemned.
Led by penitence.
By regret, by remorse, by repentance.
He brought back the thirty pieces of silver.
To the princes of the priests.
And to the senators.
Saying:
I have sinned, delivering up just blood.
But they said:
What is that to us?
Arrange yourself.
And throwing the pieces of silver into the temple.
He withdrew.
And going he hanged himself by a noose.
He hanged himself.
Now the princes of the priests.
Having taken the pieces of silver.
Said.
It is not permitted to put them into the treasury.
Sacred.
Because it is the price of blood.
Now having held council.
They bought with it the field of a potter.
For the burial of strangers.
Because of this that field was called.
Haceldama.
That is to say.
The field of blood.
Unto the day of today.
Then was fulfilled what was said by the prophet Jeremiah.
Saying.
And they received thirty pieces of silver the price of the priced.
Whom they priced by the sons of Israel.
And they gave them for the field of a potter.
As the Lord commanded me.
That over there the supreme abandoned was hanging,
Somewhere, under a fig-tree of that country there,
And that the money was serving for the field of the potter.
All the past was present to him. All the present was present to him. All the future, all that is to come was present to him. All eternity was present to him.
Together and separately.
He saw everything in advance and everything at the same time.
He saw everything after.
He saw everything before.
He saw everything during, he saw everything then.
Everything was present to him from all eternity.
He knew the money and the field of the potter.
The thirty pieces of silver.
Being the Son of God, Jesus knew everything,
And the Savior knew that this Judas, whom he loves,
He was not saving him, in giving himself entire.
And it is then that he knew the infinite suffering,
It is then that he knew, it is then that he learned,
It is then that he felt the infinite agony,
And cried like a madman the dreadful anguish,
Clamor at which Mary, still standing, tottered.
And out of pity for the Father he had his human death.
Why wish, my sister, to save the dead damned of eternal hell, and to wish to save better than Jesus the Savior?
Jeannette She ceases to spin.
— Then, madame Gervaise, who then must be saved? How must one save?
Madame Gervaise
— How you speak, my child, how you speak. We are behind Jesus, my child, we walk behind him, we are his flock of disciples. We must receive his teachings. We are the flock that walks behind the shepherd. We have not to run, we must not walk before him.
We are his flock of pupils. We are the flock. We must walk behind the shepherd. We have not to run ahead. Like sheep that have the staggers. We have not to entangle ourselves in his legs. We have not to entangle him. In his walking.
Jeannette
— Madame Gervaise, I ask you: who then must be saved? How must one save?
Madame Gervaise
— By imitating Jesus; by listening to Jesus:
A silence.
The master savior did not even try to save the damned, afterwards, for he had known that eternal hell is closed without hope.
He had known that they are souls foreclosed, declared foreclosed.
A silence.
The master savior did not sow nor will that one sow, for he knew how to multiply the loaves; one must not sow, for he still knows how to multiply the loaves.
Nemo potest. No man can serve two masters. Either indeed he will hate the one, and love the other: or he will uphold the one, and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.
This is why I say to you, be not anxious for your soul of what you shall eat, nor for your body of what you shall put on. Is not the soul more than food; and the body more than the garment?
Look at the birds of the sky, (because) they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into granaries: and your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not more, of greater price than they.
Now which of you by thinking of it can add to his stature one cubit?
And of the garment why are you anxious? Consider the lilies of the fields how they grow; they neither toil, nor spin.
Now I tell you, that Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of them.
Now if the hay of the fields, which is today, and tomorrow is cast into the oven, God so clothes it; how much more you, men of small faith?
Be not therefore anxious, saying: What shall we eat, or what shall we drink, or wherewith shall we be covered?
For all these things in fact the gentiles seek after. Your father in fact knows it, that you have need of all these things.
Seek therefore first the kingdom of God, and his justice; and all these things shall be added unto you.
Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: the day of the morrow indeed will be anxious for itself; to the day sufficeth the trouble thereof.
Malitia sua: its trouble, its malice, its evil; its labor; its trial; alas perhaps its temptation; perhaps its sin.
A brief silence.
The master savior did not will that Peter draw the sword against the armed soldiers: one must not make war.
Et ecce unus. And behold one of those who were with Jesus, stretching out his hand, drew his sword …
Jeannette
— So they had swords.
Madame Gervaise
— So they had swords. Drew his sword, and striking the servant of the prince of the priests, cut off his ear.
Then Jesus said to him: Put back thy sword in its place: for all those who shall have taken the sword, shall perish by the sword.
Or dost thou think that I cannot ask my father, and he will send me immediately more than twelve legions of angels?
How then shall the Scriptures be fulfilled, that it must come to pass thus?
At this hour Jesus said to the crowds: As against a robber you have come out with swords and clubs to apprehend me: every day I was seated near you teaching in the temple, and you did not seize me.
Now all this came to pass, in order that the Scriptures of the prophets might be accomplished.
Jeannette
— Then all the disciples, having forsaken him, fled.
Madame Gervaise
— My child, my child, how you speak, you do not speak like a little girl.
Jeannette
— I believe,… I believe…
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, what do you dare to say?
Jeannette
— I believe that if I had been there, I would not have forsaken him.
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, let us guard ourselves against the sin of pride. We are made like the others. We are Christians like the others. We would have been like them. We would have been among them. We would have done as they did. The Scriptures had to be accomplished. All forsook him. Not a single one remained. It had to be. All forsook him. We would have forsaken him too.
If we had been with them, if we had been among them, if we had been of them, of among them, if we had been them, we would have done as they did. How would you have it, why would you have it that we would not have done as they did.
We are no better than the others.
Jeannette
— They were not Frenchmen. They were not French knights.
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, how you speak. You do not speak like the others, you do not speak like everyone.
Jeannette
— Never would Frenchmen have forsaken him.
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, how you speak. You do not speak like a good Christian, like an ordinary Christian.
Jeannette
— French knights, French peasants, never would people from our country have forsaken him.
People of the French country. People of the Lorraine country.
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, let us not think proudly, let us guard ourselves against the sin of pride. These men of whom you speak so lightly, they were the first Christians.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They were the first Christians. It was not easy, to be the first Christians.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— It was not easy. The whole earth, the earth was all daubed with paganism. The whole earth was all enslaved to the cult of false gods. They were the first Christians of Christianity. They had to wash off the earth, the whole earth, like a soiled child.
They were the first Christians of Christendom. After Jesus the inventors of Christendom.
Jeannette
— They were happy. Never would our Frenchmen have forsaken him thus, never would our Frenchmen have forsaken him.
People of the Lorraine country, people of the French country.
Madame Gervaise
— My daughter, my child, how you speak. You do not speak as you ought. They were the first saints of Christianity; they were the first Christians of Christendom; they were the first saints of Christendom, the founders, movement of Jeannette, after Jesus, growing bolder, with Jesus the founders of all Christendom, the authors, the second authors, the authors of Christendom, the inaugurators of Christendom, the founders, the authors, the inaugurators, the inventors of all Christendom.
After God, with God, if it please God the creators of all Christendom.
Jeannette
— Never would the people around here have forsaken him.
Madame Gervaise
— The Scriptures had to be accomplished. Let us not speak lightly, my child, my daughter, do not speak lightly of these old saints, of the first saints. They were the first patrons, our first patrons. They were the schoolmasters and the quartermasters of the others, of all those who came after. Of us ungrateful ones. Those who prepared the lodging. The lodging of the perishable earth. The eternal lodging perishable imperishable of the perishable earth. They made the lodgings, they made the lodging, the cantonment, they prepared the lodgings for the others. For all the others. And consequently for us. For us within the others. For us ungrateful ones. They had names. They were the first disciples, they were the twelve apostles. The old saints, the eternal saints, the first old saints, the eternal old saints. They had names that count, my child. They did not bear names of the day before yesterday morning. Of the thirteenth and the fourteenth century. They began everything. After Jesus. With Jesus. The eternal old saints. They bore names that shall resound eternally. They bore, they inaugurated names that thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of Christians afterwards put on, have put on since, to make themselves patrons of them; and among these thousands and thousands, in these thousands and thousands and these hundreds of thousands of Christians, saints themselves, who put on the same name, saints in their turn, thousands and thousands of saints who having put on the same name, they also to make themselves a patron of him, after them themselves became themselves patrons, in their turn themselves patrons, resanctified the name, clothed it with a new glory, over the ancient glory, like a long line, like a spiritual company, like an eternal family, temporal eternal, behind the head of the line, like a particular family, a particular spiritual family, a spiritual temporal eternal family, behind the particular father of the family, head of the family, behind the initial patron, behind the first patron; who thus doubled, tripled the name, who doubled, who tripled the saintliness of it, who doubled, who tripled the glory of it, who doubled, who tripled the patronage of it, who doubled, who tripled, who quadrupled, who quintupled, who sextupled, who tenfold-increased, who hundredfold-increased the patronage. That is what it is, my child. Those are the names they bore. That is how it is governed. They were the saints of the saints, of those who afterwards became the saints. They were the patrons of the patrons, of those who have since become the patrons. They were the saints of the first days.
They did not bear names of today or of yesterday.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They bore, they upheld the first names of the world, they upheld, they advanced, they launched, they invented the first names of Christendom. My child, my child, they invented Christendom itself; after Jesus, with Jesus they upheld, they advanced, they launched, they invented Christendom. Now that it is done, it is not clever, it is easy to speak of them lightly, done forever, done eternally, done by them and undoable. Done by them for us. When we do it, my child, it is done. But when they were doing it, it was not done. They had, my child, they had to wash off the world, the whole world, they had to wash off the earth.
The face of the earth.
They promoted the first names of the world. They promoted Christendom itself.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They upheld great names. They were great names, my child, those names of which you speak lightly, they were sacred names. They were the first of the Christians. They were the first of the saints. Their names were the first of names. They were the first of Christian names. They were the Christian name itself. After Jesus, with Jesus they imagined, they upheld, they invented, they bore, they introduced, they advanced, they launched the being of saints, the being of Christians even, the bearing of the Christian name. They were the beginning. They began being Christian. They began being saint. They were the initial ones, the initial saints, the initial Christians, the initiators of everything.
We others we do the continuation, we have taken the continuation. It is not the same thing.
It is not alike.
We have taken their continuation.
Christians and successors.
Sons and successors.
Sons in spirit and successors in spirit.
Spiritual sons and spiritual successors.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— Where there was nothing, they made everything. And where there is everything, scarcely do we do anything. They had names that were taken, that will be taken eternally as a covering; as a covering of patronage; names that notably were taken, that excellently were taken and will be taken eternally by the saints their successors.
And where there is everything, what there is, we lose it.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They were therefore a little like Jesus. They were the saints of the saints, of the other saints, of the saints their successors, of the lineages of the other saints their successors. They were the patrons of the patrons, of the other patrons, of the patrons their successors, of the lineages of the other patrons their successors. They were therefore thus a little like Jesus. Jesus was the saint of all the saints, the patron of all the patrons, the saint, the patron of all Christendom. What Jesus was for everyone, for all Christendom, for themselves and for all the other saints, for themselves and for all the other Christians, for all those of Christianity, for all those of Christendom, for all those of the communion, they themselves were it in their turn, by the organization of patronage, by a delegation, by an apportionment, by a sharing, by a communication, by a distribution, by a carrying-over, by a true imitation of Jesus, they themselves were it for their particular families, for their particular lineages, for their spiritual lineages, in the great Christian family, in the great common family, in the great family of the communion. A kind of eternal redistribution had been operated in advance for their glory. And in the particular family of each one, in the spiritual family, in each particular family there have been great saints.
By an apportioning-out, by a repercussion of saintliness; by a redistribution, by a pouring-over of patronage.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They were James and John, sons of Zebedee. These names of which you speak lightly, my child, they were named two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting their net into the sea (they were in fact fishermen).
And he said to them: Come after me, and I will make you become fishers of men.
But they, on the spot having left their nets, followed him.
And advancing from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee, and John his brother, on a boat with Zebedee their father, mending their nets; and he called them.
Now they, at once having left their nets and their father, followed him.
Jeannette
— They were happy.
Madame Gervaise
— They inaugurated the city of God, the kingdom of God on earth. May thy kingdom come. The reign of God on earth. For the saints their successors. For the Christians, for all the Christians their successors. For us. The wage that he had earned so hardly. The souls of sinners that he had ransomed. They were named, was there not one who was named Zacharias; they were named the first, Simon, who is named Peter, Simon, called Peter, and Andrew his brother;
James, son of Zebedee, and John his brother; Philip, and Bartholomew; Thomas, and Matthew the publican; there were of several trades; James, son of Alphaeus, and Thaddeus;
Simon the Canaanite …
Jeannette
— and Judas Iscariot, who also betrayed him.
Madame Gervaise
— Unhappy, unhappy child. But one of them received his name from the very hands of Jesus, from the own hands of Jesus.
Jeannette
— That very one who denied him. People of this country here would never have denied him.
Madame Gervaise
— Unhappy, unhappy child, what idea runs behind your head? Et ne nos inducas in tentationem. Let us guard ourselves, my child, let us guard ourselves against the sin of pride, let us guard ourselves against the temptation of pride. He received his name from the very hands of Jesus Christ. It was a fine baptism of name, my child. Jesus Christ was his godfather and his godmother. This man, of whom you speak so lightly, this Christian, this saint, primus, the first of all, he did not only have what we have all had: the baptism of water. He did not only have what we have not had: the baptism of blood. He also had, by a superaddition, the baptism of name. It was Jesus Christ who gave him his name. What a name. His eternal name for the eternity of the Church. He received his name, his new name, his true name, his only name, from the own hands, from the very hands of Jesus.
The first Pontiff. The first Roman.
The bearer of the Keys.
The first bishop of Rome.
His name invented; his name new; his name created.
Jesus said to them: But who do you say that I am?
Answering Simon Peter said: Thou art the Christ, son of the living God.
But answering Jesus, said to him: Happy art thou Simon Barjona, because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven.
And I say to thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
And I will give thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven.
Jeannette
— Three times. The same. The same one denied him three times.
Madame Gervaise entering as into a holy anger:
— The denial of Peter, the denial of Peter. You have only that to say, the denial of Peter. Stammering, almost stumbling. In anger. One alleges that, this denial, one says that to mask, to hide, to excuse our own denials. To make forgotten, to forget ourselves, to make ourselves forget our own denials. To speak of something else. To turn aside the conversation. Peter denied him three times. And then afterwards. We we have denied him hundreds and thousands of times for sin, for the wanderings of sin, in the denials of sin.
Tu es Petrus, he alone received his name thus, directly, from the own hands of God since Jesus. And Jesus called him thou.
The saint sweepers, the great saint sweepers of the world.
Jeannette
— Never would the men of this country here, never would saints of this country here, never would simple Christians even of our countries have forsaken him. Never French knights; never French peasants; never simple parishioners of the French parishes. Never would the men of the crusades have forsaken him. Never would those men have denied him. They would sooner have had their heads torn off.
People of the Lorraine country. People of the French country.
Madame Gervaise
— The prophecies had to be accomplished.
Jeannette
— They would have left to others the care of accomplishing them. Never would the king of France have forsaken him. Never would Charlemagne and Roland, never would the people around here have let that be done. Never would the workers of the cities, never would the workers of the towns have let that be done. The marshal would have taken his hammer. The women, the poor women, the gleaners would have taken billhooks. Never would Charlemagne and Roland, the men of the crusade, my lord Godfrey of Bouillon, never would Saint Louis and even the sire de Joinville have forsaken him. Never would our Frenchmen have renounced him. Saint Louis, king of France, Saint Louis of the French. Never would Saint Denis and Saint Martin, Saint Geneviève and Saint Aignan, never would Saint Loup, never would Saint Ouen have forsaken him. Never would our saints have renounced him. They were saints who were not afraid.
Madame Gervaise
— My child, my child, how you speak. You lean upon the second saints against the first saints; you pronounce yourself for the second saints against the first saints; you claim the second saints against the first saints. What impiety, my child. You introduce division into the Church; you introduce a quarrel into the communion of saints. A division, a quarrel into the communion.
You invoke the second Christians against the first Christians, the second saints against the first saints.
Every house divided against itself shall perish.
Jeannette
— I say what I believe. I know the race of the people of this country here.
Madame Gervaise
— You introduce division into the Church one, which Our Lord founded one, which he willed one, which he will eternally maintain one. You introduce division, you introduce a quarrel into the one communion.
Jeannette
— I say how we are, and how were our saints. They were not afraid of blows.
Madame Gervaise
— There is but one saintliness. They are the same saints. There is but one saintliness, which comes from Jesus.
Which is the very saintliness of Jesus.
Eternally poured over.
Jeannette
— Saint Geneviève, Saint Aignan, Saint Loup were not afraid to go out before the pagan armies. They were not afraid of the pagan armies. And Saint Martin was a soldier. It was not a little troop of Roman soldiers and Roman executioners. It was no longer a few decurions. And their little decury, their wretched little decuries. That had to be put to flight. It was no longer a question of a few captains-of-hundred. Of some centurion and a third or a fourth of his century. They threw themselves with a firm heart out before innumerable armies, pagan armies. They did not lower their eyes, those ones. They did not tremble in all their limbs. They did not deny. They did not renounce. And Saint Bernard, who preached the second crusade. He was also a second saint. They bore the body of Jesus out before innumerable armies. And Saint Geneviève was a poor woman, a little girl of Paris. And they were innumerable armies, pagan armies, full of murder and of blood. And there was not one sword, there was no longer one sword, it was no longer a question of one sword, like the sword of the soldier servant of the prince of the priests. Like the sword or the staff of this Malchus. Of one sword, of one saber of a town sergeant. Of one saber of a rural guard. They were thousands and thousands and hundreds of thousands of sabers. And which had served. And which would serve again. Much. Long.
Which knew how to serve.
Which were ready to serve.
They went there nevertheless. In the folds of their cloaks they bore the glory of God.
They were shepherds, those. They did more for their flock than the others had done for the great Shepherd, for the shepherd-in-chief. They did more for the people of God than the others had done for God himself.
Madame Gervaise
— All the saints in the folds of all their cloaks have always borne the glory of God.
Jeannette
— They were barbarians, barbarian armies, innumerable armies, pagan armies. A hundred times more barbarian, a hundred times worse, infinitely more barbarian, infinitely worse than even the English. And than the Burgundians.
They went there nevertheless. In the folds of their cloak they bore the glory of God and the body of Jesus. And the barbarian brows bowed before them. Victors in defeat, they vanquished, they triumphed over the victorious themselves.
Madame Gervaise
— All saintliness comes from God, all saintliness proceeds from God. There is but one saintliness, which comes from Jesus Christ. All the saints are the saints of God, the brothers of Jesus, the brothers in saintliness of Our Lord Jesus Christ himself. The young brothers, the little brothers, the cadets of Jesus. There is but one saintliness, it is the saintliness of Jesus himself. All saintliness is the same. All saintliness comes from God, who is the eternal source of it. All saintliness proceeds from Jesus who is the source and the first author of it. And the first object and the first residence. The first seat, the seat, eternal. Who is the first example of it. The model, the inventor, the object of all imitation. The achievement, the greatest achievement, and the first, the first realization. All the saints of the world are but the reflection of Jesus. All the saintlinesses of the world are but the reflections of the saintliness of Jesus.
Jeannette
— Saint Francis would never have renounced him.
Madame Gervaise
— You introduce quarrel there where there must never be any quarrel. You introduce division there where eternally there shall never be any division.
For the Church is imperishable; the communion is imperishable and every house divided against itself shall perish.
Jeannette
— Saint Clare would never have renounced him.
Madame Gervaise
— The Church is one; the communion is one; one in time; one in eternity
Jeannette
— Renounced, renounced, it is the worst of all. Madame Colette would never have renounced him.
Madame Gervaise That anger comes back up in her.
— But come now, but come now, these saints whom you allege against the first saints, these Christians whom you bring out against the first Christians, from Charlemagne to Saint Francis and to our Saint Clare, these saints, these Christians whom you turn against themselves, in turning them against the others, they did not judge of it as you do. They did not turn themselves against their brothers. They did not turn themselves against their elders. They did not turn themselves against their first. They did not turn themselves against the eternal source.
Against their models, against their examples, against the objects of their imitation.
Jeannette
— I say what is.
Madame Gervaise
— They had the greatest devotion, they had only devotion for their brothers the saints, for their brothers the first ones. They proposed timidly and humbly, they proposed only to imitate them. All together; all together like them; all together after them; all together with them; to imitate Jesus.
They had only devotion and imitation for their brothers; for their elder brothers; for their big brothers.
Jeannette
— I cannot lie. I do not want to lie. I say what is.
Madame Gervaise
— They judged, they; they knew that they were of the same body; of the same body of Christendom. They knew that they held together, that they were of the same holding, of the great holding of Christendom.
That they were of one, of the single and same holding, of the great holding of saintliness.
Tenants of the great holding of saintliness.
Jeannette
— To renounce, no, to renounce. How could one have renounced the Son of God.
Madame Gervaise
— Jews, Greeks, Latins, Frenchmen, there are not several kinds, there are not four races of saints. Jewish saints, Greek saints, Latin and Roman saints, French saints; English saints and Burgundian saints there is but one race that is the eternal race of them. There is but one race that is the race that shall not end; the spiritual race; the eternal race; that shall never end, eternally never. For it proceeds, for it comes from the source that shall eternally never run dry.
All these saints whom you allege, these great saints, Charlemagne and Saint Louis, Saint Geneviève and Saint Francis, from Charlemagne to Saint Francis I do not therefore say only that they would never have spoken like that, that they would never have spoken like you. I say that they would have heard only with horror words such as the words you have just uttered. Against such words they would have risen up, they would have stood up, they would have lifted themselves up with all their strength, with their poor strength, with their victorious strength. Against the bad use one wished to make of them. Against this pernicious use. Against this impious use, of animating them against their brothers, of employing them against their predecessors, against their founders, against the first drinkers of the eternal source, against the first nourished by the imperishable source.
Jeannette
— I say only this: never would we, we would not have let go of him.
Madame Gervaise
— We let go of him every day, unhappy child, we let go of him every day. You invoke Saint Francis, my poor child. By madame Colette, by Saint Clare, by the spiritual filiation of Saint Clare, spiritual daughter, spiritual sister, spiritual goddaughter, spiritual companion, I have put myself under the rule of Saint Francis; of the same saint, of this saint whom you invoke; I have bound myself, for eternally I have bound myself, eternally for eternally I have bound myself to the rule of Saint Francis; I have taken refuge under the rule of Saint Francis; eternally for eternally I have sheltered myself under the rule of Saint Francis. Of the same saint whom you set against me. I shall live and I shall die, if it please God, if God wills I shall live and shall die under the rule, in the rule of Saint Francis. That is why you invoke Saint Francis at me. You are not stupid. You are not silly. You set my master against me. You set my patron against me. You set my saint against me. You set my master against me.
You set my father against me.
A silence.
Well then I who am of Saint Francis, to you who is …
Jeannette quickly:
— to me who is of nothing. Easy, madam. One is always of somewhere, one is always of something and of someone in Christendom.
There are no barefooted vagrants and good-for-nothings in Christendom. There are no vagabonds, no wanderers.
You who are of Saint Francis; to me who am of Saint Remy, and of Saint John and of Saint Joan. Of Saint Remy for my parish; and of Saint John and of Saint Joan for my baptism, for the baptism of my name, for the sponsorship of my baptism. Of Saint Remy as parishioner. And of Saint John and of Saint Joan as Christian, as baptized, as baptized Christian. Saint Remy the patron, the great patron of my parish. And Saint John and Saint Joan my patrons, my great patrons.
The great patrons of my baptism.
My patrons of my baptism and my patrons of heaven.
But the great patron is Jesus, our patron, our great patron, the great patron of everyone.
And the holy Virgin is our mother.
You who are of Saint Francis; to me who am of Saint Remy, and of Saint John and of Saint Joan.
You who are of Jesus; to me who am of Jesus.
Madame Gervaise
I who am of Saint Francis; to you who are of Saint Remy, and of Saint John and of Saint Joan.
I who am of Jesus; to you who are of Jesus, I say:
I say: If my master were here, my patron and my father; and I say if your patrons were here, your fathers and your godfathers, your spiritual godfathers; if Francis were here, my father, my master Francis; and if Saint Remy, and Saint John and Saint Joan were here, I say you would walk softly, my daughter. You would not be so proud, my child; you would not be so high. For they were great saints. Everything bent before them. You take advantage of the fact that I am only a poor woman, a poor sinner alas like everyone. A sinner. A poor woman. A poor-woman of grace. And you too would have bent before them. Together with me, together with everyone we would have bent before them. Together pell-mell, together commonly, together in communion. They were so close to grace, they were so full of the source, they were so close to the source, they were so full of grace that grace flowed from them, flowed visibly from them, overflowed from them like a living spring. And not only, my child, did everyone obey, did everyone follow; did everyone bend; not only that; but everyone was happy; everyone rejoiced in them, everyone rejoiced of them, everyone fed upon them; everyone was happy to obey, happy to follow, happy to submit, happy to bend the brow. You would have bent, my child, you would have bowed your brow. Everyone obeyed, followed with joy. They were not as today constraints and ingratitudes, rigors and harshnesses, they were not only constraints and forcings. It was an inexhaustible joy, a perpetual benediction, a joy, a sweetness in following, a contentment in going there. It would have been necessary to make an effort, on the contrary, not to go there, an ungrateful effort, an impossible effort, an effort also that no one made, that one had not the courage to make. A joy of plenitude and of benediction. One was like a land lit, warmed by the sun, watered by the good warm rains of spring, by the good warm rains of autumn. One surrendered. One melted. And one felt oneself in liberty, one felt that one was in liberty. One was in joy, you understand. One wept for joy. You would have got a piece of it for your share. One wept for joy. One surrendered. One wept with grace. Everyone. One drank that milk. One was replenished, one was sated, one bathed in that grace. There was too much of it. One lost some. One has lost too much of it. One no longer knew what to do with it. It flowed from all sides. It was not as today. Today we lack it. Today we channel. Today we are like cultivators, like peasants, like ploughmen, like gardeners who lack water; and so we make dams in order to lose nothing of this meager trickle; in order to let nothing be lost. We make dams, and canals, and canalizations; we administer, we regularize, we utilize this thin trickle of water; of an eternal water; of water, of a water of an eternal source. We utilize it to the most, as much as we can. And our lands remain meagerly watered. Our lands remain meager. A meager trickle of water. Meager lands. Meager harvests. In our meager arms we shall bring back only meager harvests. Happy still if we bring back any. A river was flowing. An inexhaustible river was flowing. There is a difference between a great river and child’s play. Between a great river and canals, artificial, child’s water-games. But I am only a poor woman. So you take advantage of it. You abuse it. You are stronger than I. But God is stronger than you and than me. You resist. You reason. You rebel. But God, if it please God, is stronger than everyone. God, if God wills it, will perhaps do what I cannot do, I unworthy. The merits and the prayers of Jesus, the promises of Jesus, the merits and the prayers of all the saints work for us. And who knows, however infinitesimal, however unworthy, however infirm God will perhaps grant something to my prayers. He will perhaps grant, he will doubtless grant much to yours, for one must pray for oneself, one must begin by praying for oneself, God loves that one pray and that one begin by praying for oneself. Otherwise there would be pride. There is pride, it is that there is already a point of pride. God will tear you from this servitude, God will deliver you from this servitude. God will save you, God will calm you from this disquiet. From this dangerous, from this perilous disquiet. At the peril of your soul. From this mortal disquiet. God will enlighten you from this obscurity, from this shadow where you seek.
One must pray for oneself in the others, among the others, in the communion of everyone.
All that I want to tell you; all that I can tell you, I a poor woman, is that if the great Saint Francis were here, our brother Francis, I do not only say that he would not speak like you, my child my daughter; I say that he would have heard such words only with horror; I say that they would have broken his heart. Or rather no, my child, my poor child. Almost laughing. They would not have done anything to him at all. For he would not have heard anything at all, laughing, and it is not because he is deaf, he would not have heard them at all. And they would have been spared to everyone, they would have been spared to the face of heaven. For he being present, my child, our brother Francis being there, if he were there my poor child, my dear child, it is you who would not have said them, he being present you would have bowed your brow, beautiful child, your heart would have melted. And you would have followed, you would have followed. Your heart would have melted in a true piety. My God, your saints ought to live forever. They depart too soon; always too soon. You always call them back too soon. You have plenty enough for yourself. You have plenty enough at home with you. And we we lack them. We others we lack them. They are missed by us. They are so missed by us. We always lack them. They others they succeeded. And we we are poor women who do not succeed.
I go further, my daughter, and if one may in heaven feel some sorrows, words such as those that you have, that you had just uttered, are all that can give the most pain, if they hear them, if ever they were to hear them, all that can give the most pain to the saints who are in heaven.
Jeannette
— I said only, forgive me, I say only: never would we others have forsaken him, never would we others have renounced him. It is the truth. I say only: never the people around here, never we others, never Lorrainers, never the people of the valley of the Meuse, never parishioners of our parishes, never those of Vaucouleurs, never those of Domremy, — never those of Maxey would we have forsaken him. We are great criminals, we are great sinners. But never would we have done that.
Never would we have let that be done.
Which is worse.
Which is the worst.
Of all.
I do not like the English. I say: Never would the English have let that be done.
Madame Gervaise
— Take care, my child, pride watches; and the evil one never lies down. It is his greatest masterpiece to turn aside toward sin the very feelings that pushed us toward God, that cast us to God.
That conducted us, that put us at the service of God.
We have two kinds of feelings, my child. Two races of feelings grow in us, push in us, my child, divide our soul between them, two races of passions; two slopes of inclined planes carry us along; two sets of mechanism make us lean, incline us; two mechanisms, two slopes of declivities carry us along; two mechanisms of inclination, two inclinations make us slip, make us fall to one side or the other.
There are the feelings that incline us, that conduct us toward God, that lead us, that lead us back to God; there are the passions that throw us to God; there are the mechanisms, the sets of mechanism that push us to God; there is the slope, the inclined plane, the inclination, the inclining that makes us slip, that makes us fall on the side of God.
And unfortunately, alas alas there is the other side. There are the feelings that decline us, that deduce us, that seduce us, that turn us aside from God; that demanage us, that misconduct us, that lead us un-back, that seduce us from God; there are the passions that tear us from God; there are the mechanisms, the sets of mechanism that draw us from God; there is the slope, the inclined plane that makes us skid from God; the inclination, the inclining that makes us slip, that makes us fall to the other side, alas, than the side of God.
But anyway, as long as the demon is working on his side, my poor child my poor child one can almost say that there is nothing to say; alas alas, unfortunately alas, it is sad to say, it is dreadful to say: but anyway, when he is working on his side, one could almost say, you understand me well, my little child, in a sense one could almost say that it is his right; that it is legitimate, as legitimate; when he is working in his domain, in his kingdom, alas in his kingdom of perdition; when he is working in the feelings that work for him; when he is working in the feelings that serve him, that serve him, naturally; that are made, alas, that are as made for him; when he is working, when he is playing in the passions that come back to him; when he is playing his game, the wretch; when he is going down the slopes that are, alas, as it were reserved for him.
As if abandoned to him.
Only then his domain was always limited, his kingdom, his wretched kingdom. He never obtained, he could obtain only a certain number of souls. So he invented, the wretch, he imagined, the perfidious one, the pernicious one, the pestilential one, he invented, he imagined inventing a sin; a new sin; a singular sin; a peculiar sin; a particular sin; a sin by which at last he would pass over to the other side; by which thus at last he would double, he would extend indefinitely, infinitely his domain, his kingdom of perdition; by which at last he would squint at, he would tempt the very saints of God.
He would reach with his hand the very saints of God.
The wretch, the doubly wretched, the wretched of the one and of the other hand.
A sin that is no longer only like all the others. Like the other sins. Like all the world of sins. Like the sins his brothers, his wretched brothers. A new sin. A well-invented sin. A sin outside the others. Outside all the others. A sin that makes the virtues and the vices play together, equally the virtues and the vices. And even more, and perhaps better, certainly better the virtues than the vices. That reigns first over the other sins his brothers, his little brothers, his shameful brothers, his brothers of perdition. That reigns so to speak equally over the virtues. And even more over the virtues, rather over the virtues, so to speak better over the virtues. That joins, that unites in a base, in a shameful servitude, that utilizes, that equalizes in a baseness, in a common, in a shameful equality the virtues and the vices.
That plays equally the one and the other game.
The old pride watches, my child. Take care, take care, the old pride watches.
The first, the oldest master of the world. The oldest master of servitude. The first invented. The oldest invented. The pride that lost the very angels.
The master who plays the one and the other game. Who gives and who takes with the one and the other hand. Who places with both hands. Who plays both games.
The old pride never lies down. Take care, take care, my child, the old pride never sleeps
The old pride does not know the sleep of night. The old pride does not know any bed of rest.
It is the greatest invention of the evil one, my child, my poor child. One would almost admire him for it so to speak, you understand, you hear well, my child, you understand as I say it, you hear well what I mean. It is really his masterpiece, one could say it is almost a masterpiece. For thus he tempted, he was able to tempt, he managed to tempt the very saints of God. And all the strength that nature had given us, he turns it back on us, it is that one that he turns back on us against nature and against God; and all the strength that the grace of God gives us, he turns it back on us, it is that very one that he turns back on us against God. It is an admirable canalization, you hear me well, an incredible diversion, a turning, a turning-back of canalization, a prodigious derivation. Ah yes, ah yes, it is a masterpiece. How could God have let him invent that. By this ministry, by this means, by this canalization. By the ministry of this means, by the ministry of this canalization. It is dreadful. Really it is dreadful to think of. Thus the feelings that turned us toward God, it is by those, by those very ones, that he turns us away from him. The feelings that conducted us naturally toward God, that led us on to God, that made us end at God, it is by those that he draws us away from him. The passions, the floods of passion that threw us to God, it is by them that he tears us from him. And the floods of grace, unhappy child, the floods of the grace of God, it is in those floods, it is in those very floods that he drowns us in sin. That is how he works my child, that is what pride is. The evil one is always the evil one. He plays his game in the game of God, in the very game of God. And all that God has given us to help us work out our salvation, Jesus himself and the merits, Jesus and the promises, he uses it to lose us, he makes it serve to lose us, he makes it serve to our eternal perdition.
He plays on the side where he ought not to play, where he ought never to play, in the game of God with the game of God.
He uses everything, he turns everything around, he knows how to turn everything around. Jesus himself and the history of Jesus.
Jeannette
— I say only: Frenchmen, Englishmen, Burgundians, never my father, never my mother would we have delivered him up; my father, that big strong man; my mother, who has made the pilgrimages; never my uncle Lassois, my uncle Durand Lassois; never my godfather, never my godmother; never my three brothers, never my big sister; never the curate even, the curate of Domremy, the old father Bardet, who is yet such a good man, such a good fellow; and so sweet, so peaceful; blessed are the peaceful; a man who would never get angry, a man who would never start speaking louder one time than another; a man who does not do, who has never done harm to anyone; and so much a curate. Well he would have got angry, that day, monsieur the curate. Never my uncle, never Hauviette, never Mengette would we have endured that. Our saints were saints who were not afraid of blows.
Madame Gervaise
— The old pride watches always. When the devil works by the other sins, by the six capital sins, he does his trade, the wretch; he is at his trade, he works in his line. But when he does it by pride, my God, when he walks, when he advances on the ways of pride, when he passes by these ways; by these turned-aside ways; by these ways of turning-aside; by these ways turned around; by these ways of turning-around; when he takes the cloak of pride, no then, no, my God, he does too much. You let him do more than his trade.
Jeannette
— I say only: We would not have endured that. We would not have borne that. We would not have let that be done. I say: Hauviette. I say: Mengette. looking at her abruptly straight in the eyes. I say: You, madame Gervaise, you would not have let that be done.
Madame Gervaise staggering suddenly under this thrust, under this invasion, under this attack; direct; under this revelation of the most secret thought. She trembles. She blushes abruptly. A flash in the eyes. Then she speaks to reassure herself. She slowly, modestly extinguishes all that.
— My child, my child, spare me.
He has come, in the night, like a thief, and he has stolen everything.
stammering, stumbling, recovering herself little by little:
I did not come into the world in that time, my child.
Jeannette, implacable:
— You, you would not have renounced him.
Madame Gervaise in an incredible effort, in a terrible effort of humility; voluntary; of will of humility; as if hunted; in a quivering, in a shivering; closing her eyes; humbly; she will finish in a gray voice.
— My child, I am like everyone.
I am no better than the others.
I did not come into the world in that time. God makes us come into the world when he wills. He is always right. God does well what he does.
He came in the night like a thief; and he has carried everything away.
Jeannette She finds the way to say what follows humbly:
I am sure that I would not have forsaken him. God is my witness that I would not have forsaken him.
Madame Gervaise recovering her assurance little by little a little out of habit:
— Forsaking, forsaking …
in a trouble still:
The old pride watches. God makes us be born when he wills. The old pride is not dead. The old pride never dies.
Forsaking, forsaking, you have only that to say; the forsaking of the disciples, the revocation of the apostles, the renegation, the denial of Peter, you have only that to say. In the life of a whole saint you take, you retain this: that he was, that one day he was a renegade. It is easy nowadays to be a Christian, it is easy to be a parishioner. It was less easy when they began. You play the clever ones, now, you play the proud, you play the strong, you play the great. You play the saints. It is easy nowadays to be a parishioner. It was less easy when there was no parish, and when the whole earth was unploughed. Thirteen centuries of Christians, thirteen centuries of saints have washed off the earth for you; thirteen centuries of Christians, thirteen centuries of saints have disabused the earth for you; thirteen centuries have ploughed the earth for you. Ungrateful ones, ungrateful people: Thirteen centuries have Christianized you, thirteen centuries of saints have sanctified the earth for you. And so, that is all you find to say. Thirteen centuries of Christians, thirteen centuries of saints have built your parishes for you, have wiped off the earth for you, the face of the earth, have built your churches for you. And so that is all you have to say. Ungrateful ones, ungrateful people. In coming into the world, you found the house made and the table set. The holy table. And what you say, is that one day, a day of mourning, the day of an eternal mourning, is that one day he was a renegade.
The earth, the face of the earth was so dirty, my child. All defiled with dirt, all defiled, all dirty with paganism.
All defiled with the adoration of false gods.
With the cult of false gods.
And there was not a parish on the face of heaven.
Renegade, renegade. It is quickly said. Once he denied Jesus, — three times. And we, and we, how many times have we denied him. The denial of Peter, the denial of Peter: and the denial of you, the denial of you others. The denial of us, the denial of me. The denial of everyone: always of everyone; of all you others, of all we others everyone. Thousands and thousands of times we deny him. And it is of a worse denial. Hundreds and thousands of times we forsake him, we betray him, we deny him, we renounce him. Of what denial. Of a denial infinitely worse. For there is a difference. They others, they were poor people who knew nothing. Nothing had been asked of them. They had not been asked their opinion. Jesus had passed by and had carried them off. One day he had passed by like a thief. He had carried everyone off. He had taken everything, carried everything off. All those who were marked. All those who happened to be there. Who happened to be right there. They were poor fishermen; of the lake of Tiberias. Which was also named the sea of Galilee. And those two who were mending their nets with their father. And one day, in the stupor of this thunderbolt history, in the trembling of this extraordinary revelation, one day, the poor people, well yes, they botched their affair. They were not up to it that day. It is that they were not trained, they were not used to so great a history. They were not used, they were not made to their own greatness. They were not in any way prepared for it. By all their previous life. By their parents, by their trade, by their family. By their habits, by their friends, by their companions. By their conversations, by their occupations of every day. They were not forewarned. They did not think, they did not know that they had come into the world for that. Expressly for that, uniquely for that. They did not know their greatness, their own greatness, their vocation, the destination of their greatness. They had not been forewarned. They had received no warning. In short, they were surprised. Naturally. They did not expect it. It is understandable. It was the first time. But us.
she pronounces gray words:
Pride watches.
The old pride watches.
My child, we have not come into the world in that time.
We are all like everyone.
The earth was all dirty, all muddy, all daubed with mire.
In that time.
In illo tempore.
In those days.
In diebus autem illis.
All miry.
And us they have washed off the earth for us, wiped off the plaster, gathered, prepared the provisions where we eternally replenish ourselves.
Jeannette
— I say only: I am like everyone; (but) I know that I would not have forsaken him.
Madame Gervaise
— They did not suspect their history, their own history, the greatness of their history. How could they have guessed it. One had never seen anything like it. But us. Us, we have received thirteen centuries of warning. We have received thirteen centuries of admonitions. Have we been warned enough. We have thirteen centuries of practice. Thirteen centuries of existence. We have thirteen centuries even of habit. We know. We are acquainted. We ought not to be surprised.
Have we received enough of them, warnings. Thirteen centuries of Christians, thirteen centuries of saints, thirteen centuries of Christendom. We ought to know. One time. One time, twice, three times. And the cock crowed. But us it is the thousandth, it is the hundred-thousandth, it is the hundredth of thousandth time that we deliver him up; that we forsake him, that we betray him; that we renounce him, that we deny him. Ungrateful people, ungrateful people, but also renegade. Thousands and hundreds of thousands of times we deny him for the wanderings of sin.
How many times, thousands and hundreds of thousands of times the cocks of the farms, of all the farms have crowed after we had denied him three times; upon our simple, upon our double, upon our triple denials. The cocks in the straw. On the dunghill of the farms.
It is funny one always speaks of that cock there, he is famous, of the cock who happened to be there to crow, to sound, to register the denial of Peter. It is to change, it is to turn aside the conversation. It is to give the change. There have been cocks since. There are cocks in our countries. And they are not unoccupied. We do not leave them unoccupied. One would say there are no cocks in our countries. One never speaks of the cocks of our countries. Alas alas there is not a cock in not a farm that has not crowed, that has not sounded, that has not announced to the rising sun, that has not registered, every day, every sun, worse denials. Denials more than triple. That has not proclaimed the turpitude of man. The cock crows at break of day. What the cock crows at break of day, at the break of all days; standing erect on the dunghill of all the farms; standing erect on their spurs, what they vaunt, what they celebrate, what they proclaim, what they announce is our denials without number. How can one hear in the morning the crowing of the cock, how can one hear a cock crow, hear a cock crowing, in the morning, and they begin again every day, and how many times every day, how many times per day, without thinking immediately of the triple denial, without weeping immediately for the triple denial, and our denials, which are more than triple. Each day.
A cock crowed for Peter; how many cocks crow for us; the race of them is not lost.
The race of cocks is not lost.
Only we do not hear them, those ones, we do not want to hear them.
Alas, alas, he must be beginning to be used to it. We have given him the habit; a habit of his own; we have habituated him to it. We have given him this singular habit: of being denied.
We have made him take this habit.
The same history always happens. By the real presence, by the presence of Jesus the same history always happens.
But these saints of whom you speak so lightly; and not only you; but everyone, everywhere one speaks of them lightly; this Peter, our founder, of whom you speak lightly; whom everyone mocks; the master of the keys. They were the apostles invested. They were the first disciples.
Jesus forgave, and instantaneously, in advance he had forgiven the denial of Peter. May God grant that he has taken the habit; and that likewise also he forgive us our innumerable denials.
May God grant that God has taken the habit. May God grant to have taken the habit. Also this habit.
This habit as the other.
As the other that we have made him take.
This habit and not only the other.
Peter our rock. Peter the rock of our foundation.
They were the first. They were the disciples. They were the apostles. They were the martyrs. Peter obtained the supreme honor of being crucified. Crucified like Jesus! What a mark. What honor; unique. What a mark of his destination. He was only crucified head downward, in the spirit of humility, because naturally no one can be crucified quite like Jesus. Jesus was the head and he is the base. Jesus was the head and he the feet. The foot.
And Andrew, his brother Andrew was crucified on a saint Andrew’s cross.
When we shall have paid like them, as much as them, our denials, our own denials, then, my child, we shall be able to talk. When we shall have had that honor, when we shall be dead for him, like them, then, my child, we shall be able perhaps to say a word; we shall be able to put in our word. Almost laughing within. But then, my child, it is then that we shall say nothing. For it is then that we would have nothing more to say. For it would be that we were in the kingdom. In the kingdom where one no longer says anything, where one has nothing more to say. For it would be that we were sharing with them eternal beatitude.
It would be that we were sharing their eternal beatitude.
Their beatitude. The beatitude they have earned. In the kingdom where one no longer says anything, because one has nothing more to say.
Because there is nothing more to say.
Jesus preached; Jesus prayed; Jesus suffered. We must imitate him in all the measure of our strength. Oh! we cannot preach divinely; we cannot pray divinely; and we shall never have the infinite suffering. But we must try with all our human strength to say, to communicate as best we can the divine word; we must try with all our human strength to pray as best we can according to the divine word; we must try with all our human strength to suffer as best we can, and unto the extreme suffering without ever killing ourselves, all that we can of human suffering. That is what we must do here below, if truly we do not wish cowardly to let the others be damned, if we do not wish cowardly to let ourselves be thus damned with them.
Jeannette
— I do believe that at bottom I am not cowardly all the same.
Madame Gervaise
— That is what we must do here below. For there are treasures. As there is unfortunately as it were like a treasure of sins, fortunately, fortunately there are other treasures.
There is in heaven, in heaven and on earth, in heaven and from there on earth, there is in heaven a treasure of grace; a treasure of graces; an eternal source of grace; it flows always and it is always just as full; it flows eternally and it is eternally full: that is what the doctors of the earth have not understood.
It is always full. It is always eternally just as full. That is what the doctors of the earth have not understood.
There is a treasure of sufferings, an eternal treasure of sufferings. The passion of Jesus filled it at one stroke; filled it all: filled it infinitely; filled it for eternally. And yet it is always waiting for us to fill it, that is what the doctors of the earth have not understood.
There is a treasure of prayers, an eternal treasure of prayers. The prayer of Jesus filled it at one stroke; filled it all; filled it infinitely, filled it for eternally; that time when he invented the Our Father; that time, that first time; that unique time; the first time that the Our Father came out into the world; the time, the unique time, the first time that the Our Father appeared on the face of the world; pronounced from those divine lips; lit up the face of the earth; come out of what lips; the prayer that was to be afterwards, eternally afterwards, pronounced so many times; resound so many times on unworthy lips; the prayer that was to be repeated so many times; resound so many times on human lips; thereafter eternally so many times; the prayer that so many times was to sound, was to tremble on sinful lips; so many times rise to faithful lips. So many times sing; murmur. So many times tremble in the choirs of the faithful, in the secret of hearts.
When the prayer came forth for that time, for the first time, the prayer of which we shall never make anything but echoes.
The first time that the Our Father came forth upon the face of the earth, came forth into creation, lit up the face of the earth; came forth from him.
Came forth upon the face of the world, lit up the face of the world.
The first time that the Our Father rose toward Our Father, who art in heaven.
Invented, pronounced from his divine lips.
There is a treasure of prayers. Jesus, this time, at one stroke, this first time Jesus filled it; filled it all; for eternally. And he is always waiting for us to fill it, that is what the doctors of the earth have not understood.
There is a treasure of merits. It is full, it is all full of the merits of Jesus Christ. It is infinitely full, full for eternally. There is almost too much of it; so to speak; for our unworthiness. It overflows with it. It overflows; it overflows again; it overflows with it. It is infinite and yet we can add to it, that is what the doctors of the earth have not understood. It is full and it is waiting for us to fill it. It is infinite and it is waiting for us to add to it.
It hopes that we add to it.
That is what we must do here below. Happy when the good God, in his infinite mercy, is pleased to accept our works, our prayers and our sufferings to save a soul thereby. A soul, a single soul is of an infinite price.
Jeannette
— What then will be the price of a whole people of souls; what then will be the price of an infinity of souls.
Madame Gervaise
— There is a treasure of promises. At one stroke, at the first stroke Jesus has held all the promises. He came and he has held all the promises. He has held all the promises of God, all the promises of the prophets. All the promises of God recalled, repercussed by the prophets, by the lineage of the prophets. All the promises made to his people, to the people of Israel; and in Israel to all humanity. Singular promises. They have all been accomplished at the first stroke, they were all crowned at one stroke. And eternally it is from us, it is also from us, it is finally from us that they await their accomplishment, that they await their crowning. Singular promises. Still singular. Doubly singular. It is to us that they were given. It is to us that they were promised. And it is in the end from us that depends their accomplishment, it is from us that they await their crowning. It is in our hands, in our weak hands, in our meager hands, in our unworthy hands, in our sinful hands that resides their very accomplishment and the promise of their crowning. It is the world turned upside down. He to whom the promise is made is also he who in the end holds the promise, holds the promise to himself. It is the world topsy-turvy. He who holds is the same as he to whom it is promised. It is we who keep our word to ourselves, who have to keep our word to ourselves. That is what the doctors of the earth have not understood.
Jeannette
— A soul, a single soul is of an infinite price. What will be the price of an infinity of souls?
Madame Gervaise
— You force me. You go beyond me. When one says to save a soul, that means to save that soul, that one thinks of that soul; of the salvation of that soul. One says: to save a soul. That does not mean that one excludes the others, that one thinks, that one works against the others, outside the others; that one pronounces oneself against the others, outside the others; that one prays outside the others.
For that would be to pray outside the communion.
When one says to save a soul, one says, one means a soul, a certain soul. One does not say one, one single one as when one counts one, two, three.
One never prays outside anyone.
In such a way as to hold anyone outside.
One never prays against anyone.
One says to save a soul, one says it like that.
Jeannette As if not hearing:
— What will be the price of an infinity of souls?
Madame Gervaise
— One must think of all, one must pray for all. Too happy when his infinite favor is pleased to choose this soul from among those whom we have loved. Ah! Jeannette, if you knew …
A brief silence.
You will often have been told that I had fled the world and that I had been cowardly, that I was cowardly, that I had forsaken mama; they have only that to say, that one has fled the world, that we flee the world: if you knew by how many tears, and of the blood of my body and of the blood of my soul I have wished to save that soul! Forgive me, my God, this pride for ever, of having dared to choose a soul to save it.
A long silence.
But when the soul has passed before the Tribunal, if God has condemned it to eternal Hell, our works are not valid for it; it is dead: our prayers are not valid for it; for it our sufferings are not valid. Let us not give for it, let us not give in vain for it our living works, our living prayers, our living sufferings: one must leave the dead to bury their dead.
Jeannette She ceases spinning to engage the discussion.
— Then, madame Gervaise, when you see that a soul is being damned …
Madame Gervaise with a muffled extreme violence; like a cry from below:
— Never do we know if a soul is being damned.
Jeannette
— Alas! we know well that there are some that are being damned. We see clearly. Come now! madame Gervaise: often we believe well that such-and-such a soul is damned.
Madame Gervaise
— My sister, when I believe well that a soul has damned itself, I am unhappy and I give to God the new suffering in which my soul is enclosed by supposing damned a soul still here.
One offers to God what one has. One offers to God what one can.
Jeannette
— And when you see, madame Gervaise, that your prayers are vain?
Madame Gervaise very keenly; like a muffled cry; like a secret cry:
— Never do we know if prayer is vain.
blushing and quickly recovering herself:
Or rather we know that prayer is never vain. There is the treasure of prayers. Since Jesus said his Our Father. Since the first time that Jesus said the Our Father.
very firm.
And when it were so, it is the affair of the good God: our souls are his. When I have made my prayer and well made my suffering, he hears me according to his will: it is not for us, it is for no one to demand of him a reason for it.
Jeannette
— And the suffering.
Madame Gervaise
— He hears the suffering as he hears the prayer.
Jeannette
— And when we see, when you see that Christendom itself, that Christendom in its entirety is sinking gradually and deliberately, is sinking regularly into perdition.
Madame Gervaise
— We shall see, we shall see, my child. What do you see of it. What do you know of it. What do you know. What do we know of it. We shall see. Let us let run, let us let come the will of God. The world is being lost, the world is sinking into perdition. You notice it, you see it, since when? let us say for eight years. You hear it said, by the old ones, since when? let us say for forty, for fifty years. Let us say from father to son for fifty and a hundred years. And then afterwards. What are forty, what are fifty and a hundred years compared with what is promised to the Church. And were it for the thirteen centuries that it has been going on. What are centuries of days and centuries of years. What are centuries of minutes? There shall be centuries of centuries. We are of the eternal Church. We are in eternal Christendom. We are of eternal Christendom. These times have come, there shall be other times. These times have come, there shall be, there is eternity. What do centuries of centuries of time weigh in face of eternity.
Of true, of real eternity.
In face of the eternal promises. Of the promise of eternity. Of the promise made to the Church.
In face of the promises.
In face of the promises what does the event weigh; the poor, the wretched event; everything that happens.
What do we know.
What do we see.
And were it so, it is the affair of the good God: Christendom itself is his, the Church is his. When I have made my prayer and well made my suffering, he hears me according to his will: it is not for us, it is for no one to demand of him a reason for it.
We are in the hand of God.
The ways of God are unfathomable.
Jeannette A little abruptly.
— Farewell, madame Gervaise.
Madame Gervaise
— Farewell, my daughter. May Jesus the Savior save your soul forever.
Jeannette
— So be it, madame Gervaise.
She begins spinning again.
— Orléans, who art in the country of the Loire.
Madame Gervaise had gone out. But she comes back in before one has had time to lower the curtain.